


Sherlock

by bunnoculars



Category: SHINee
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-14
Updated: 2018-09-12
Packaged: 2019-06-10 11:39:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 105,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15290751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bunnoculars/pseuds/bunnoculars
Summary: As Shinee prepares for their first Korean comeback in a year and a half, Jonghyun starts receiving defaced photographs of himself in the mail. He doesn't know who is sending them, or why. While the group struggles with growing pains, Jonghyun finds himself caught between the past and his future, reexamining his relationships with the people in his life, as well as the things he wants for himself. Set pre-Sherlock, from December 2011 to March 2012.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I started with the idea of doing a fic based on _Evasive Inquiry Agency,_ but in the end I borrowed a lot from another Park Yeonseon drama, _Wild Romance._ This story goes in its own direction, but I took the basic plot, some of its themes, and echoed a few of my favorite moments.
> 
> Other than that, there are two things I feel like I need to say right off the bat: First of all, I know absolutely nothing about Shinee's manager, and made no attempt to find anything out. The manager in this fic is just someone I made up. And secondly, normally I try (and mostly fail lol) to fit my stories into their real life schedules and Shinee's timeline, but this fic gets even more wrong than usual.

“You really don’t want to room with me.”

Taemin just looks at him.

“Really?”

Looks some more.

“Why, what’s wrong with me?”

That gets Jonghyun somewhere. Finally. Taemin makes a dumb face, furrows his brow and scrunches his eyes up, and tells him on no uncertain terms, “Not everything is about you, hyung.”

He never said everything was. Just this one thing. It’s okay if Taemin doesn’t get that, though, and if he tried to argue he might end up proving Taemin’s point. Jonghyun waits until Taemin goes back to his food, and moves on.

“Don’t hold out for your own room, don’t bother,” he tries next. “Minho and Kibummie are already fighting over who gets which one, if you get in the middle you’ll just cause problems.”

He leaves it there, lets that sink in while Taemin’s caught mid-slurp, fighting to swallow with half his brick of noodles hanging out of his mouth. After the year they’ve had, Jonghyun could afford to buy him real Japanese food, in a real restaurant, but Taemin is happy with this much, instant ramyun at the counter of the convenience store a block down from their dorm. It’s just as well, because anything else is too much energy, and who knows if 2012 will be as good to them.

The one thing that’s already decided is that they won’t be coming here much longer. In a few months, SM is giving them an upgrade. High-rise in the heart of Gangnam. Four bedrooms. Four bathrooms. Paradise compared to the way they’ve been living.

And right now, more trouble than it’s worth.

“Why can’t they room with each other?” Taemin says, as soon as he can get the words out. Jonghyun doesn’t care how cute he is when he nudges him with his shoulder, smiles, says, “They have to listen to you, if you help me you can have the other single~”

“It’s me or Jinki hyung.”

It took both of them to keep Minho and Kibum’s cold war from heating up around Taemin, but maybe they shouldn’t have tried so hard. Even if things are mostly okay now, it’s been three long years, and Taemin can still ask something like that. He still has no clue.

“Then…” Taemin trails off, like he’s telling Jonghyun it doesn’t have to be this way, and somehow he’s just as cute when he gives up, comes back at Jonghyun with, “Jinki hyung.”

Taemin is such a brat. It’s a problem. Jonghyun needs to put his foot down.

…It’s a problem.

“He snores, though?” Jonghyun says, kind of helpless. He’s pretty sure Taemin threw Jinki under the bus just now, so it doesn’t count if he does too.

Taemin isn’t impressed either way. “That bothers you more than it bothers me.”

There’s nothing that doesn’t bother Jonghyun when he’s trying to sleep, and that includes Taemin. He shakes the bedframe whenever he turns over, and sometimes his breathing sounds funny, and when he has a cold he snores, but Jonghyun can take all those things, because he does worse without them. _Nothing_ is worse than the times Taemin’s not in bed when he’s supposed to be. Then he keeps Jonghyun up, waiting for him, listening for his footsteps, listening to the silence where he should be, trying not to think about what he’ll do to him in the morning. By the time he shows up Jonghyun’s always too mad to sleep.

It’s not the same with Jinki. When he snores it’s just annoying, and there’s not a night that goes by where Jonghyun wouldn’t give anything to fall asleep before he does.

“Don’t come crying to me when he keeps you up,” Jonghyun says. It’s less and less funny, the more he tries to turn this around. “You already complain about him all the time.”

“He won’t be able to roll onto my bed if he’s on the other side of the room, he’ll just end up on the floor,” Taemin points out, which, well. Jonghyun can’t really fight him on that, so he ignores him instead. Stares out the window like he can see anything beside their reflections, and pretends he can’t feel Taemin’s eyes on him every few seconds, there and gone and there again. Then, finally.

“You don’t want to room with Manager Hyung?”

Jonghyun just wants to room with Taemin.

“Maybe you’d rather be on your own~?”

Jonghyun wouldn’t rather.

“You won’t be able to sneak out at night~”

He’d have to go to bed first, and anyway, “It’s only sneaking out when you do it, Taeminnie. The rest of us are adults. I’m twenty-two.” He pinches Taemin’s cheek. “Manager Hyung can just come to the gym with me, if he has a problem with it.”

Which would never happen, not in a million years. Manager Hyung goes on and on about losing weight, but he’s all talk, he puts all his effort into making sure none of them gain any. And he doesn’t care how Jonghyun spends his nights, either, as long as Jonghyun doesn’t make his days any harder.

And that’s all obvious, but Taemin is giving him this look, like Jonghyun is playing dumb or something. “Did you get dumped again? Inha-ssi or whatever?”

What? No.

Jonghyun should have seen that coming. He should probably be grateful Taemin skipped asking if Manager Hyung can come on dates with him, too.

“Eat your noodles,” he says.

Normally Taemin wouldn’t even need to be told, normally Jonghyun wouldn’t even exist until Taemin’s finished them, but now Taemin lingers, searching his face for tells. All Jonghyun has to do is meet his eyes, wait for Taemin to blink first, but instead he finds himself saying, “I broke up with her, there was nothing to break up even.” Which there really wasn’t. A friend set them up, he liked her fine, she liked him a lot more, too much, the end. Taemin takes all of two seconds to process that, get over it and move on, picking up his chopsticks and leaving Jonghyun behind. Giving him an out, too, and he should be taking it, but Taemin’s the one who asked, so. “We’re going to be busy again soon.”

Like Taemin needs to hear it. Shinee spent the whole day over at SM being told as much, meeting after meeting after meeting about their comeback. Taemin got out of a lot of it because of school, but Jinki’s recaps were even less exciting than the real thing, and almost as long, too, the whole car ride home, onto the living room couch, over Minho’s video games, when Jonghyun got out of the shower, right up to the moment Taemin’s stomach growled and Jonghyun brought him here, saved them both.

For now.

Taemin gulps down the dregs of his broth, goes to throw his bowl away, and when he struggles into his coat instead of sitting back down, Jonghyun offers to buy him something for the road. Then buys some more time, following him around, complaining about each thing Taemin finds, pointing out whatever he misses, until finally Jonghyun has to cut him off for real. The clerk sees them coming, only just manages to clear her books out of the way before Jonghyun heaves their basket up onto the counter.

Which reminds him. “Aren’t your finals coming up? I never see you studying.”

Taemin hates winter, he always thinks it’ll last an eternity, but the reality is it’s too short. December is half over, and once they hit January, Taemin’s almost out of time, February is already right there.

“I’m graduating, isn’t that enough?”

Taemin’s face as he says it tells Jonghyun he has no right to talk, but that’s never stopped him before.

“It’s your life, Taemin-ah. Don’t half-ass it.”

Just then the clerk reads out their total, which saves Jonghyun from hearing Taemin’s retort until they’re out in the cold, weighed down with Taemin’s loot, and they’ve both had some time to think about it.

In the end all Taemin says is, “Like you said, we’ll be busy again soon. I won’t have any time, so why bother now,” and then, before Jonghyun can tell him off again, “This is the most I’ve gone all year, and I’m so far behind there’s no point. The only thing I’ve learned is that I’m stupid, I could figure that much out on my own.”

Jonghyun gets some of that, but he dropped out before he debuted. The most he had to deal with was teenage angst. I hate school, I hate math, I hate my life, I hate wasting my time on this shit, that kind of thing.

“This place isn’t giving you any problems, right?” Not like the last school Taemin went to, the hell his class put him through. “You’d tell us now if someone were bothering you, right?”

Taemin doesn’t answer for a while, rearranging the bags in his hands, watching where his feet will fall, looking up at the moonless sky. Then, strange and sunny, “No,” like he spent the wait winding Jonghyun up, finding the thing that would make him craziest.

“No, what?” Jonghyun demands. Now Taemin smirks at him, and Jonghyun has one moment where he would do anything to get his hands on him, before his face betrays him, breaks into the biggest, stupidest smile, totally without his permission. “Taemin-aaaaaah.”

Taemin laughs out loud.

Jonghyun isn’t this close to laughing too, he’s really not. “It’s funny to make hyung worry?”

“I’m not making you do anything,” Taemin tells him, talking back in that dumb way only Taemin can, straight to the point while completely missing it. And that’s all it takes, Jonghyun cracks. By the time he can breathe again Taemin’s gone ahead of him, and it’s all he can do to keep up when Taemin says, “They only bother me for other people’s numbers. It used to be Suju hyungs, then you guys, and now it’s EXO,” and then asks, “What if they’ve forgotten about us over here, does it still count as a comeback?”

If Taemin is thinking of the clerk, he has no right. She didn’t recognize them because she never does. She’s been working nights there for three years, and Taemin still doesn’t know her face. And if he’s not, if he’s thinking of the year and a half since Lucifer, Jonghyun doesn’t really want to go there.

“There’s more money in Japan, anyway,” Jonghyun says, and when Taemin’s not too convinced, or amused, or anything really, he bumps him with his shoulder, and wishes he could pinch his cheeks. “You should be happy nobody’s recognized you tonight, just look at you.”

Taemin gives Jonghyun a smile, and all he’ll say to that is, “I could say the same to you.”

It costs Jonghyun nothing to admit, “You could,” but somehow it comes out sounding more like an offer than anything.

And he really could, they’re like twins right now, Jonghyun looks like he lives out of a PC bang too, glasses and pajama pants and flat hair, bangs combed into his eyes…but Taemin doesn’t. Just smiles some more, wider, brighter, so pretty Jonghyun should probably be eating his words instead of sneaking glances.

That takes them all the way to the bright lights of the lobby. The last thing Jonghyun feels like doing is going back up there, so he wastes time checking their mailbox, hides his surprise when it’s not empty and Manager Hyung didn’t get there first, and makes Taemin skip the elevator for the stairs. Three short flights later they end up in the same place. Nowhere.

Jonghyun is still too tired to sleep.

 

A week later, over what passes for breakfast, Kibum says, “This one’s for you, hyung.”

Huh. Weird.

When he reaches for it Kibum snatches the envelope away. “Next time you get the mail, try going through it,” and when Jonghyun opens his mouth, Kibum shuts him up with one look. “Don’t lie, Taeminnie told me it was you. And don’t just leave it somewhere and forget about it, I only found it cleaning up Jinki hyung’s shit.”

Whatever. It’s not Jonghyun’s fault Jinki never puts anything where it belongs, manhwa, spare change, his shoes, dirty dishes, dirty clothes, anything. Everything.

…It’s not like Kibum’s blaming him for that, either. “Yes, mom~”

That’s good enough for Kibum. As soon as Jonghyun has it in his hands, he secrets it in his lap, turns in his chair, and Kibum almost puts his elbow in his rice bowl, leaning over the table to get a closer look. “Who’d be writing to you? There’s no return address even.” He snorts. “Your mom does know how to text, right?”

To the point where Jonghyun wishes she didn’t know his number, yes. And if Kibum would just let Jonghyun open it, he’d know.

Kibum doesn’t even stick around that long. Jonghyun’s still working his thumbnail into the seal when bathroom door opens, “Fucking _finally.”_ And once Kibum’s pushed past Jinki and slammed it shut behind him, he leaves them with, “For fuck’s sake. It’s a bathmat, hyung, not a towel,” which, like Jinki cares. He’ll take another couple hours to wake up, start giving a shit about anything.

So when Jonghyun gives up, rips the envelope open and shakes its contents out onto the table, and sees his own face staring up at him, scribbled on and poked full of holes, he’s safe. His skin can buzz and his mouth can go dry and his ears can rush, and Jinki won’t notice a thing.

As soon as he can move again, he scrabbles for the photograph, sits on it first, then slips it into his back pocket, and that’s all it is, just a photo, just a sick joke. By the time Jinki sits down and picks up Kibum’s chopsticks, it’s like nothing happened.

Nothing has.

“Minho?” Jinki says, after a solid minute of chewing.

That’s easy. “Jogging.”

Jinki nods. “Taeminnie?”

Easier. “Asleep.”

“Kibummie?” Jinki says, and Jonghyun would never have laughed anyway, so it’s okay. That’s never stopped Jinki before, though. He smiles to himself, snorts into his rice, goes back to the same well. “Jonghyunnie?”

It’d be even less funny if Jonghyun said _catching up with my anti-fans~_ or something, and he’s not so sure he could get that much out with his throat closing up like this. He’s not sure where his voice has gone, either, or what it would sound like if he could say what’s inside him out loud.

This is so stupid.

Maybe a minute passes before Jonghyun can get as far as, “Just eat, hyung,” and then he doesn’t wait to see if Jinki’s found him out somehow, if he made things weird. He just gets out, and worries about breathing again once he’s got the bedroom door at his back. And if anybody asks, he’s not freaking out, he’s not scared he’ll cry, or anything. He’s just here to wake Taemin up.

As long as he can still hear the shower, he’s got time, and Taemin does too. Climbing up to his own bed is too much work, so Jonghyun borrows Jinki’s instead. And the ceiling is too far away down here, and Taemin’s too quiet, cocooned in his blanket and dead to the world, and there’s nothing to see, everywhere he can put his eyes. He thinks he’ll outlast his tears, lying here, but the silence gets to him first, and he can’t stop himself from taking another look.

The photo is the same as it was ten minutes ago. His face hasn’t changed either. What’s left of it. Whoever did this went through the effort of finding this address, sending it to him instead of SM, but it’s zero effort. It took no imagination to stab him with a pencil and finish him off with black sharpie. It sucks. It’s not worth it.

He puts it away again and turns to Taemin instead, and almost has a heart attack when Taemin meets his eyes.

All he says is, “You’re not Manager Hyung,” and Jonghyun can breathe again, Taemin didn’t catch him. Talking about it with him would be even worse than with Jinki. 

Anyway. Manager Hyung’s not here. 2B’s girlfriend stole their spot again, so Manager Hyung gets to start his day at a parking garage seven or eight blocks away, collecting the van and paying through the nose. When they got back last night, Minho wrote like fifteen angry notes that ended up in the trash instead of her windshield, because Manager Hyung is a coward like that.

Taemin doesn’t care about any of that, though. “Is it my turn yet?”

“Kibummie’s,” Jonghyun says. Before Taemin can process that fully, shut his eyes and drift off on him, Jonghyun adds, “You might not get one at this rate.”

Somehow that’s too far in the other direction, because it has Taemin kicking off his blanket and scooting off the foot of his bed. Jonghyun watches him until he disappears into the closet, then lies back and listens to him change, hangers clicking against each other, clothes rustling. He emerges wearing one of Jonghyun’s T-shirts, and Jonghyun thinks about saying something, until Taemin throws himself down next to him, too lazy to crawl over Jonghyun and get back to where he started. Whatever, it’s old, it’s from before he started lifting weights, and it fits Taemin. He can have it.

“I showered last night, it’s okay,” Taemin says. Jonghyun didn’t say anything, and he’s not going to, but Taemin scrunches up his nose, asks him, “Do I smell?”

If Taemin wants to check his armpits that’s on him. Jonghyun levers himself closer and presses his nose into Taemin’s hair. Strawberry, same as always. 

He makes a disgusted noise in Taemin’s ear, and draws away in time to catch his reaction, bratty and pouty. All of five seconds later it’s too much effort, Taemin’s over it. He doesn’t do morning, either.

“Are you still tired? You can go back to sleep, I’ll wake you up when it’s time,” Jonghyun says.

Taemin just looks at him, really looks, long and lingering, searching his face, and Jonghyun doesn’t do anything about it, even though there’s nothing he wants Taemin to see. And when Taemin reaches up to pick crap out of Jonghyun’s eyes, he raises a lump in Jonghyun’s throat, sudden and horrifying, and Jonghyun really really needs to get the fuck over the fact that someone out there doesn’t like him. It’s enough that Taemin does.

“What about you, aren’t you tired, hyung?” Taemin says. He kind of ruins it by adding, “I know you didn’t sleep, you kept moving around all night, you were so annoying,” but Jonghyun lets him get away with it, Taemin’s so cute.

So warm and soft, too. Jonghyun slings an arm over Taemin and snuggles closer. Closes his eyes.

Breathes.

“Come on, get up. Up.” Slap on his thigh. “Time to go.”

Manager Hyung.

“Jonghyun-ah.” Jonghyun turns his face into the pillow. “Taemin-ah.” Pulls Taemin closer.

“Stop fucking around, get the fuck up, come on. Stop pretending to sleep.”

And Kibum.

“If we’re late, you get to explain why. You get to do the apologizing, too. All of it.”

Minho, too. When did he get back?

Five minutes. Just five more minutes, please. Please…

Hands around his ankles, bone-tight, and before he knows what’s happing he’s on his ass on the floor, skin of his back raw and burning, more than the thing in his back pocket even. He gets up on his knees, twists around in time to see Jinki go for Taemin next, but too late to save him. The most he can do is take him by the elbow and help him to his feet, try not to feel too guilty, while the others laugh at them both.

Maybe Manager Hyung has the same problem, because he’s scratching his head, shifting his weight, round face pulled into a grimace.

“Calendar photo shoot,” he reminds Jonghyun on the stairs, and on their way out the door and into the street, “We have to go early so we don’t end up late,” and then, fiddling with his keys, Seoul waking up around them, “Traffic gets bad soon, I wouldn’t have been able to make up any more time.”

He doesn’t need to say any of it. He shouldn’t have to.

Taemin settles in next to Jonghyun in the backseat, heavy against his side, head on his shoulder, eyes already sliding shut. “Coffee?”

It won’t do Jonghyun any good, but if it puts the others in any kind of mood to talk and keeps Taemin awake, that’s something. That’s everything at this point. Otherwise he’ll be alone again, just him and this shitty feeling.

Manager Hyung smiles at them all through the rearview mirror. “Coffee.”

 

First coffee shop they’ve seen within a few blocks of a parking space, and now here they are. Jonghyun came in with Minho and Manager Hyung because he thought it’d be better than the silence in the car, but now he’s rethinking that.

There’s already a line, and Manager Hyung takes a million years to order Kibum’s drink alone. He hasn’t learned to drink coffee black, or accept the extra calories in the meantime, and it’s already Manager Hyung’s job to make everything they consume the lowest fat possible. And once he’s done, mission accomplished, they still have to wait. And wait.

If anyone’s recognized them they’ve kept it quiet, and he knows today he’s the problem, but still, Jonghyun feels like everyone is looking at him. And whenever someone laughs, picks up their phone, brushes past him, he feels a little sick. Even if it means clocking in, he wants out.

Minho is way ahead of him. “Are we doing the whole year in one day?”

“We cleared your schedules in case the shoot runs into tomorrow. But that’s just in case. It shouldn’t.”

Minho grins, nudges Manager Hyung. “You got us a day off, right, hyung?”

They’ve had nothing but days off lately.

Manager Hyung frowns. “Maybe,” he corrects Minho, and it takes all of two seconds before he’s adding, one thing after another, “And I didn’t do anything. SM didn’t want to pay for another day, that’s all. I just do what I’m told.”

He’s always like that. He takes compliments badly, and thanks even worse. Jonghyun learned a long time ago that the best thing is to leave him alone. Good or bad, it’s better if Manager Hyung doesn’t hear it, unless he absolutely needs to.

And if Jonghyun absolutely needs to tell anyone anything, it won’t be him.

So he ignores the eyes like ants crawling across his face, the thing in his pocket, and says, “How far up do you have to go before people stop telling you what to do?”

It’s just a joke, which is probably why Minho gets it first, tells him, “Lee Sooman seonsaengnim’s level,” like it’s a stupid question.

And maybe it is, but Manager Hyung doesn’t look like he thinks so. He doesn’t look like he’s thinking much of anything, arms crossed over his chest, head down, maybe nodding off. He probably doesn’t know what he looks like. He probably doesn’t even care.

“Hyung, I’m gonna go wait outside.”

Manager Hyung jerks awake. Jonghyun doesn’t even feel it when his eyes snap up to his face, then focus in on him, but it’s not like it helps any, either. He doesn’t want Manager Hyung to see anything any more than anyone else here, all the more because he knows what to look for.

“Are you feeling okay?” Manager Hyung says, and only gets as far as, “We’re already here, but,” before he cuts himself off, hesitant and apologetic. Jonghyun doesn’t need to hear it, he knows they have no time for whatever it is. He doesn’t even want to, when Manager Hyung goes on, “If you need me to swing by a pharmacy later—”

Jonghyun has to cut him off. “It’s just really hot in here.” Manager Hyung nods, but he gives him a look too, kind of reproachful, kind of searching, so Jonghyun piles on, “It feels like July, their heating bill must be crazy,” and when Manager Hyung doesn’t crack a smile, Jonghyun forces one himself, and leaves it there.

Things are no better out in the cold, but he’s bought himself a little bit of time, while they figure out some new way to get worse.

They always do.

 

“You guys really haven’t heard the rumors? You don’t know?”

No, they don’t, they wouldn’t be asking if they did, they wouldn’t want to know what they’re talking about already. Before Jonghyun can tell the coordi noonas as much, Jinki gets in the way.

“We got up to come here.”

“They started up last night already,” one of them says, and when Jinki’s only reply is that they went to bed early too, another cuts in, says, “It’s all coming from one account on the fansites. Everything got deleted, but not before DC Inside picked up on it, and now it’s all over SNS.”

The air was strange when they got here. At first Jonghyun thought it was just him again, the things this morning had already done to his insides, coffee eating his stomach, caffeine lighting up his nerves, photo tattooed on his eyelids. He lasted maybe fifteen minutes with the coordi noonas avoiding his eyes and making small talk and turning everything weird, just trying to catch their eyes and answer normally, and telling himself not to be so weird. Finally they sat him and the others down for hair and make up, more of the same right in his face. And right as Jonghyun broke, opened his mouth, Kibum burst out, “What is up with you guys. Like seriously, _what?”_

Minutes later the rest of them are still on that. Jonghyun just wants to know when today decided to suck this much. That’s above his pay grade, though, that’s up to Manager Hyung. His phone hasn’t stopped ringing since they got here, and he keeps ducking out to take the calls.

Whatever’s gone wrong, SM is on top of it.

“At least people still remember we exist,” Kibum says. “How bad is it? Funny bad, or shitty bad?”

“It.” The rumors themselves, and whatever the netizens make of them. All that bullshit.

Silence, so brittle you could snap it in half, followed by, “Anyone who knows you guys would laugh, but…”

“But you can’t just tell us? It’s bad enough that you can’t say it out loud.”

Jonghyun doesn’t know he’s opened his mouth until he’s already twisted around to look at them all, and they all look back, first time all morning. He’s allowed to exist for like half a second, before the coordi noona working on him turns his face back to hers, fingertips digging into his chin and thick brows drawn into a scowl. Any one of the others would chide him, _Keep still, Jonghyunnie,_ or maybe tell him, _If you mess me up, it’s your problem, not mine~._ Scary Noona just gives him a look like, _I will fuck your face up,_ and when she almost pokes his eye out with the mascara brush, it’s probably on purpose.

The world moves on without him. Kibum whines for Manager Hyung, but Minho borrows one of the noonas’ phones and gets there first. All Jonghyun has to do is wait while she finds him a link.

“I had plastic surgery apparently,” Minho says at length. “A nose job, three years ago.”

Right away, Kibum says, “What’s so bad about that, it’s true,” and shuts up so fast Jonghyun’s head spins.

Minho takes a moment. Then, like the words are being jerked out of him, “Are you saying it’s good?” and when Kibum bites his tongue, Minho’s voice rises. “I got hit in the face with a soccer ball, I broke my nose!” And suddenly Jonghyun’s stomach is in free fall, and he’s okay over here with Scary Noona, if it means he doesn’t have to watch what he’s hearing. “That’s not the same thing, that’s not plastic surgery, it’s corrective, that doesn’t count.”

“Don’t let it get to you, Minho-yah,” Jinki tells him. He’s so stupid, getting in between them like that, but it means Jonghyun doesn’t have to.

“I’m trying not to.” Pause. Frustrated noise. “Breaking my nose is like the most normal thing I’ve done since we debuted. Like, who are these people kidding. Like they would have left it crooked, like they wouldn’t have had theirs fixed. Some of them probably have.”

Jonghyun doesn’t think there would be anything wrong with them if they had. He doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with getting plastic surgery, period, whatever your reasons are. It’s always different when someone’s saying it about you, though, so he keeps quiet.

Kibum’s just about done with that. “We know you were born perfect. What about the rest of us?”

“Just give me a minute.”

There’s brief scuffle, and this time Scary Noona lets Jonghyun go to glare at Kibum and Minho instead.

“Fine,” Minho snaps, wrenching himself around and holding the phone out of Kibum’s reach.

Kibum sinks back in his chair, waits for Minho to get on with it as loudly as he can, sighing and rearranging himself and complaining to the noona working on him, “You guys said there were rumors about all five of us, right? Not just Minho?”

“Fine,” Minho says again, and Jonghyun has one moment where he knows Minho is about to make everything ten times worse, and it’s already too late to stop him, and. “Let’s see if this is bad enough for you. ‘Starving yourself is going too far.’ ‘If you can’t control yourself, that’s your problem. Forcing other members to diet is fucked up.’ ‘He’s first place in effort, last place in looks.’”

“Aigoo, is that supposed to be about me? I starved myself? You guys too? When exactly?” Kibum laughs, so loud and fake it sets Jonghyun’s teeth on edge. And then, because he can’t let it go, “What’s that look for? If you have something to say.”

And because Minho can’t keep his big mouth shut, not even if it means embarrassing himself in front of the coordi noonas, “I mean…where’s the lie?” And once that’s out there, “Don’t get mad, you said the same about mine.”

“You can’t tell me not to react, like you’re any better. You’re reacting right now.”

Jonghyun wishes he had never gotten up. He wishes he could have protected Taemin from Jinki, too, kept him there with him. They’d be asleep right now.

“You always act like you’re the only one with self-control. You count our calories, no one asked you and you’re worse than Manager Hyung.”

“What’s my thing?” Jonghyun says loudly. “Kibummie’s is boring, I bet mine is worse~”

He’s the one who got hate mail today. The two of them can shut up.

Kibum takes that, and says, “Taeminnie,” like he’s just going to drag Taemin into the middle of their shit, after Jonghyun spent the last four years keeping him out of it. And before Jonghyun can do anything about it this time, Taemin comes at it sideways, says, “I don’t get fat, just my face does.”

It sounds so much like an apology Jonghyun isn’t even sure Kibum’s taking it the wrong way when he snaps, “I make you lunch and everything, and this is the thanks I get. Next time you go to school you’re on your own. You can starve, and blame me.”

He doesn’t really care, either. “He didn’t mean it like that, Kibum-ah. Stop it.”

And then Minho again, “You’re always on Manager Hyung’s case, too.”

“You too, stop.”

And if it were as easy to get them to listen as it is for Jonghyun to say it, maybe Kibum wouldn’t call Manager Hyung over, and Jinki wouldn’t have to tell them, “Leave him out of it, come on,” and Manager Hyung wouldn’t have to press pause on damage control, just to have it thrown in his face.

“I’m sorry I didn’t catch this earlier,” he says, before Kibum can open his mouth. Manager Hyung slept through his phone dying on him last night, like any normal person would, and had to charge it on the way over here, and that’s all. And now he’s saying, “Just give me some time. As soon as I know what SM’s game plan is, you will too,” and it’s another apology, and Jonghyun wants to hear it even less.

Because, great. There’s a game plan. Jonghyun might have doubted for a second there that things could still get worse.

He shouldn’t have.

Kibum ignores everything Manager Hyung just said, and tells him, voice all twisted up, “Minho wants jjajangmyun for lunch today. Sweet and sour pork. Ramyun. Whatever. When he’s done he wants to look like—” _you._ “Shindong hyung,” Kibum says instead, last second conscience pang. Too late. The air changes, goes still, and if they all knew he was going to say it there’s no way Manager Hyung didn’t. Kibum doesn’t stop to give a fuck. “He wants to fuck 2012 up before it starts. Fucking standing there and looking pretty is too much fucking work for him.”

 

There’s no talking after that. The coordi noonas move on to their hair, and once they shed their own clothes for their January outfits, they still have some time before the crew needs them. Minho and Kibum each decide they’d rather not spend it breathing the same air, and head off in separate directions. They know when they have to be back, and Jonghyun is sick of them both, so he lets them go.

Eventually Jinki gets his phone out, takes a look for himself, and Jonghyun has had enough, he doesn’t need to know the latest on why he sucks. That doesn’t explain why he crowds in behind him, pressed to Taemin’s side.

“Aigoo, I’m a drunk,” Jinki says, scrolling so fast Jonghyun only catches a word here and there, exclamation points, emojis, kekeke everywhere. “I showed up to work still drunk once.” It comes out like a statement of fact, and before Jonghyun can pass judgment on that, Jinki digs his elbow into his stomach, says, “And you…only passed your audition at SM because of your face.”

He got scouted for it, at least.

“What, that’s it?”

Jonghyun leans in closer, gripping the back of Jinki’s chair, and Jinki holds up the top comments for him to see, cheek-to-cheek with Taemin.

_If SM is the disease, he’s a symptom._

_We’re talking about an idol here, did you guys forget? He did anyone with talent a favor, stealing their spot._

_He’s only pretending to sing well now. Just stick to lip syncing, Kim Jonghyun-ssi~_

“That’s so stupid,” Taemin bursts out, right in Jonghyun’s ear. And then somehow the next thing out of his mouth is, “What’s my thing?”

And Jonghyun doesn’t know how to get him to listen to himself, how to get this bitter taste out of his mouth. “It’s not worth it, Taeminnie. You don’t want to know, trust me.”

Taemin gives him a look from right up close, breath tickling his face, and Jonghyun has to choose where to put his eyes, Taemin’s as they narrow, his lips pressing into a straight line, chin lifting. By the time Taemin gets around to using words, says, “I don’t care what people say about me, but they’re saying it, so,” Jonghyun doesn’t need to hear it, any more than he wants to see whatever it is hit Taemin.

“Dating scandal~” Jinki says, completely out of left field.

“What?” Dating? _“Taeminnie?”_

A few things happen at once. Jinki laughs his ass off. Jonghyun realizes he said that out loud. Taemin snatches the phone away from Jinki and turns away from them both, screen two inches from his eyes, like it’ll say something different up close.

Jonghyun’s not sure if it’s him or the internet that’s got Taemin’s shoulders so tight. “Taeminnie?”

When Jonghyun tries to see for himself, Taemin twists away from him again, and the most Jonghyun can get of him is silence, glowing red like the turn of Taemin’s cheek and the tip of his ear.

Before he knows what he’s doing Jonghyun is reaching for him, squeezing his shoulder, rubbing his back, telling him, “It’s okay. It’s okay,” and he doesn’t blame Taemin when he shrugs him off. Jonghyun’s not making things any better, he’s not helping.

“They’ll find something else to talk about tomorrow, they always do,” Jinki says, and when that goes nowhere too, he leans out of his seat to pat Taemin on the butt. “At least they gave you a girlfriend, I got caught with soju-ssi.”

Someone needs to tell Jinki he’s not funny. Someone already does, a few times a day, every day, and he still won’t give it up. He’s smiling now, too, but even if Taemin isn’t, Jinki still got him to look.

“I dated this girl, and I broke up with her too, and none of these people can tell me who she’s supposed to be,” Taemin says, and he’s trying so hard to sound normal Jonghyun wishes he wouldn’t. Then the rest of Jinki’s words catch up with him, and he scrunches his face up. “You keep talking like yours really happened, hyung.”

Right as Jinki comes out with, “If you don’t remember, it didn’t happen,” Jonghyun is already saying, “It was a long time ago.”

Years ago, 2008 or 2009. Awards ceremony, plus the company’s after party, sunbaes who won big pouring them drinks right and left. Jonghyun survived watering potted plants and centerpieces with alcohol, but Jinki took it like a man. It was a school night, so the other three were only there for the next part, when their night rolled over into a five a.m. variety shoot. Only half awake, too.

“I sobered up in the van, I was fine by the time we got there,” Jinki says in a rush. “I didn’t know how to drink back then,” even though Taemin has nothing to say about it, and then, “Hyung is sorry, it won’t happen again,” even though Taemin’s this close to laughing at him, Jonghyun can tell.

“Tell that to Manager Hyung,” Jonghyun says, piling on. “You were such a mess, you took twenty years off his life, you’re lucky he needed you alive.” Taemin mouth twitches, and all Jonghyun has to say is, “I’m serious, Taemin-ah, it’s not funny,” and it’s really not, but who cares.

Taemin laughs.

 

The day crawls, month-by-month. They hit a break when summer arrives and the crew flips the calendar to June, and once they’ve changed and the coordi noonas touch them up, Jonghyun just wants to hurry up and get it over with. Even if work can’t stop him from thinking, even if it’s more boring than sitting here and doing nothing, it’s still something to _do._

All Taemin wants is to borrow Jonghyun’s phone, since he forgot his. Jonghyun doesn’t ask him if it’s more like he lost it, says sure, says it’s still in his pants pocket, and lets Taemin get halfway across the room to the lockers holding their stuff before he remembers. Tripping over himself, half running half walking, finally pushing in front of him, heart in his throat, Jonghyun beats him to it.

Taemin doesn’t look at him like he’s crazy, even when Jonghyun holds on after he’s already handed it to Taemin, fingertips meeting.

“Don’t look at anything bad,” Jonghyun warns him.

Taemin rolls his eyes and says, “I’m not a baby, hyung,” even though he knows that’s not what Jonghyun meant. For once Jonghyun doesn’t let himself give in, pretends to think twice, and all that gets him is a smile, further from the real thing than before. “You have games on here, right? Don’t get mad if I break all your high scores~”

As long as that keeps Taemin offline.

Taemin gives him a thank you and forces another smile and wanders away, already off in his own world. Jonghyun doesn’t stick around to see if he’s planning on returning to this one anytime soon, because in the meantime he’s stuck with Kibum and Minho, sniping at each other between long, simmering silences, and he can’t take much more of that. So he gets out, and takes the photo with him.

Jinki had the same idea maybe ten, fifteen minutes ago, but he didn’t get very far. Jonghyun takes maybe three steps outside before he finds him, against the wall, sitting on his haunches and hunched in on himself, three inches from ruining his outfit in so many different ways.

What the coordi noonas don’t know won’t hurt them. Or him. Jonghyun hunkers down next to Jinki.

“I’m so fucking tired.” Saying it out loud just makes it worse, but still. “Couldn’t they have picked another day?”

“Who? For what?” Jinki asks, because he’s annoying.

Jonghyun annoys himself even more, coming up with an answer. There are so many: the coordi noonas for telling them about the rumors today, the person who decided to spread them in the first place, Minho and Kibum for acting like brats, taking it out on each other.

Jinki doesn’t wait for him to choose one, moves on first. “I’ve been thinking. A lot of it’s just clichés—plastic surgery, extreme dieting, dating, whatever. But it’s like they got too much right? Something like that? Whoever spread this stuff must have watched us pretty closely. Maybe they’ve worked with us before, maybe they know us even.” Out loud, it sounds so obvious. Jonghyun gives him the least impressed look he can, and Jinki narrows his eyes, digs his elbow into Jonghyun’s side, already giving himself away, smiling. “Was it you?”

Ha ha?

Jonghyun can feel the sigh building in his chest, but he plays along. “Never ask first, hyung. That’s more suspicious.”

Jinki sniggers, coughs up a confession, “Yeah, it was me, you caught me,” and Jonghyun just sits there and watches him and doesn’t get it, or him, or this insane never-ending day. He stopped waiting for the punch line ages ago.

“It doesn’t bother you at all?”

Jinki’s smile fades as their eyes meet, and he takes his time with that. Jonghyun gives him as much as he needs, not really sure what Jinki could even say, what good it could do, talking about it any more than they already have.

Finally Jinki says, “It happened years ago, it’s a little late to get worked up now.”

That’s not really an answer. It’s not even true, when it’ll be like it all just happened, to anyone reading those things about them now, who doesn’t know their side of the story, hasn’t had years to get over it, was just looking for a reason to hate on them, whatever. Even if SM doesn’t have them drafting apologies or issuing denials by tonight, and lying one way or the other, the netizens will make Shinee pay.

And even if they leave Shinee’s Jonghyun and Shinee’s Onew out of it, just worry about themselves for now, “All that means is someone really hates us. They held a grudge this long.” Jinki doesn’t say anything either way, so Jonghyun presses him, “It doesn’t bother you. Really,” and it doesn’t come out like a question, but still, he’s asking.

Jinki thinks about it some more, and this time he turns it around. 

“What about you? You took it better than the others.”

Jonghyun wants to tell him it just looks that way, he has no one to yell at is all, but then he remembers Taemin’s smiles, small and tight and painful, and bites his tongue. Jonghyun let him fake it, and he left him on his own in there, too.

“My thing is kind of obvious,” is all Jonghyun can say. “It’s true, too, if anyone asked me I could have told them that. Minho’s and Kibummie’s and Taeminnie’s aren’t.”

“They are, though, kind of,” Jinki replies.

Maybe Minho’s technically, and maybe Kibum’s too, if you want to be overdramatic about it, but definitely not Taemin’s. If Taemin ever had a girlfriend Jonghyun thinks he would have known. Even if Taemin kept it from him he thinks he would have been able to tell. And anyway, as far as Jonghyun’s concerned, there’s no such thing as halfway when it comes to truth, but whatever. No one’s ever asked him, and no one ever will, that’s not how things work.

Even Jinki won’t ask, even now, just takes the look Jonghyun gives him in stride, and says, “Yours isn’t one hundred percent, either. They call it a training program for a reason, it’s to train people. Does it make any sense, saying you stole a spot from somebody who wouldn’t even need it?”

There are a few things Jonghyun could say to that. A lot of kids were worse at dancing than him, a lot more were worse at singing, but there were always people who were better, too, and maybe someone he beat out at auditions would have ended up being one of them. He got in because he was pretty, but some of the people he respects most in this industry got shut out at SM because they weren’t. And maybe he’s not just a visual, maybe he’s got his voice, too, but he’s never used it to say anything, except what the company tells him, and other people want to hear.

Jinki’s just trying to help, though. Jonghyun should listen to him, instead of the person who’s gone behind their backs and tried to hurt them all. Still.

“It’s like…if somebody who knows me hates me, I probably deserve it,” Jonghyun says, circling all the way back. “Maybe it’s too late to fix it, but I can figure out where I went wrong, what I did, or whatever. There are a lot of things I hate about me, too.” Jonghyun takes too long to figure out where he’s going, the whole time waiting for Jinki to make it into a joke, assure Jonghyun he feels the same way, but Jinki doesn’t go there. Just sits, breathes, blinks, buries his face in his arms, everything he would do if he weren’t listening. “If they’ve never met me and they still hate me, they have no reason. That’s worse. I can’t do anything about it.”

He’s barely finished before Jinki comes out with, “You can just ignore them, you don’t even have to tell them to fuck off. All it means is they suck,” and Jonghyun doesn’t get how it’s suddenly that simple, this thing that’s been fucking him up and eating him alive and turning his insides black. Jinki goes on, “If someone you know has a problem with you, then it’s your problem too, you have to deal with it,” but Jonghyun doesn’t care about that.

He takes the photo out of his pocket and shoves it under Jinki’s nose.

Jinki stares. Jonghyun can tell, the exact moment he registers what he’s seeing. And he can tell, too, when Jinki decides to go ahead and say the exact wrong thing.

“You really did get into SM because of your face. I can see that, it’s a work of art.”

Jonghyun forces the laugh out of his chest, but somewhere in between hearing how stupid he sounds and seeing Jinki’s smile, he forgets how to stop, and by the time he regains control of himself, he’s all cleared out. All that’s left is blue skies, pins and needles in his legs, grit under his shoes, the cold eating at his fingers, and his own breath, lingering in the air.

“They sent this to our dorm?” Jinki says next. “There’s no way the company would let you see this.”

“Yeah.”

Jinki frowns at him. “Has Manager Hyung seen it?”

Jonghyun shakes his head, says, “It’s just some stupid photo,” and when Jinki gives him a look he makes Jonghyun regret showing him, makes him snatch it away. Makes him say, “I only showed it to you because I thought you’d find it funny,” and that’s such an obvious lie it burns Jonghyun up, and neither of them know what to do with it.

“I’m not as stupid as I look, Jonghyun-ah,” Jinki says gently.

Before Jonghyun can think he’s saying, “Right now I’m just telling you,” and then, “He’s got enough to deal with right now anyway, I don’t want to make his day any worse.” And then he thinks. “Hyung…”

“Yeah?”

The rumors aren’t fresh. If they’re not made up, if they’re not just a string of lucky guesses that hit too close to home, if they begin with anything at all…it’s with things only they would know, things they only ever would have talked about amongst themselves, and only ever at home. And someone’s been sitting on all of it, all this time. It’s only now that they let it out.

Kibum and Minho never left anything unsaid between them, and they got shit talking each other out of their system years ago. And even then, Jonghyun and Jinki were always stuck with both sides of it. Whatever their differences, neither of them let it leave the group. And then, Taemin. Even if he had it in him to hate anyone, much less any of them, he still wouldn’t hold onto any of this stuff, or complain about it to his friends. He tries so hard to move past the bad things. Jinki is too lazy to nurse a grudge, and soju would have betrayed him a long, long time ago anyway. And Shinee means the most to him. Jonghyun’s never told anyone anything about the others. He’s never had someone _to_ tell.

And one person hit all five of them.

The thing is, though, it’s never been just the five of them. There’s a sixth, always. He’s the last person they think about, and the first one they guilt trip, stress out, gang up on, bitch about, complain to.

Manager Hyung.

…Might have spread this stuff around? He could have? Maybe? Maybe Jonghyun is crazy?

“Never mind.” Jonghyun gives Jinki half a second with that before he says, “Do you have any cigarettes?”

Jinki smiles. “Nope.”

All it takes is that one word, and suddenly Jonghyun wants to smoke so badly he can taste it.

“I left mine in my jacket,” he says, “and this day is how shitty already, and we have half a year left before we can go home. What kind of shitty world is this, if I can’t even have a cigarette after everything.”

Jinki grins, the way he’s supposed to, says, “I’m going to tell this shitty world that Kim Jonghyunnie smokes~” and then he sticks a cigarette in Jonghyun’s mouth, and goes back for his lighter. The way he’s supposed to.

“Go ahead, take a picture, upload it, whatever,” is what Jonghyun goes for, tight-lipped and trying to lean in without losing his balance.

Somewhere in the middle of that Jinki pauses. Stops. At first Jonghyun curses the lighter, trying to be patient, trying to wait. Then he curses Jinki, but that only lasts a second, before he gets a good look at him, follows his eyes, up, up, up, until he falls on his butt, and realizes he’s in the shadow of Scary Noona.

She didn’t need a reason to hate him before, but he’s given her one now, cigarette dangling between his lips, pavement dirty and damp, like ice seeping through the designer pants they gave him to wear.

One second he’s terrified for his life, and the next the door swings shut behind her again. She probably came out here looking for them, but she never even said anything. Jinki’s laugh, high and nervous as he scrambles to his feet, says it all.

Time’s up.

Jonghyun drops the picture into the first trashcan they pass on their way back in, and tries to leave it behind. He’ll have enough shit to deal with, if he survives whatever the coordi noonas do to him now.

It was just one more thing.

 

Jonghyun can’t win. Two days later, two whole days without a schedule or disaster, and he should be happy. All he has to do is stay unplugged. He gets to ignore Minho’s alarm, let his phone die, stay out all night and stay in bed all day, leave his headphones in when Manager Hyung enters a room, eat when he’s hungry, catch up on Naruto. 

He’s bored out of his mind.

Kibum is too, but he’s making a point of it. Jonghyun had to pick up his legs just to sit down, and now Kibum’s feet are wedged against his thigh, like he’s trying to squish him into the armrest, force him off the couch. He changed the channel right away, too, so Jonghyun’s spent the last twenty minutes in the reign of King Danjong, and everybody on screen is even less happy about it than he is. 

“Spoiler: they all die,” Jonghyun says.

Kibum could care less, chewing his fingernails and listening with his whole body as Minho bangs pots and pans around. All he has for Jonghyun is, “Good.”

Jonghyun tries harder. “Is Ham Eunjung’s bed scene this week~?”

“Being a pervert is a choice,” Kibum tells him. There’s no strength in his kick, because he puts everything into the look he gives Jonghyun. “Try cleaning up your thoughts next, you should have started there.”

The ahjumma that comes in on week days does the best she can to keep this place livable, but it takes Kibum and Jonghyun both just to neutralize Jinki and Taemin, and make her job doable. This time he’s on his own. Jonghyun’s already cleaned the bathroom, the living room, and their room today. The kitchen too, but since Minho started on dinner, he’s stopped counting that. 

“You sure you don’t need any help?”

Minho glances up at him from the onion he’s chopping, blinded with tears. The answer’s still no.

“I’ve got this, hyung.”

Jonghyun didn’t really expect anything different. He figures that it’s enough that he can tell “this” is kimchi stew, and moves on. Jinki and Manager Hyung are playing Go-Stop for money, so Jonghyun passes them by and lets himself bug Taemin instead. The last time he checked on him Taemin had his head buried in a giant textbook, probably faking, but this time it’s laid open over his stomach, rising and falling with each breath, slipping slowly, slowly off him as the mattress dips under Jonghyun’s weight. Taemin’s eyes follow him until they’re face-to-face, and he’s a breath away.

“You’re done cleaning finally?” Taemin says.

Jonghyun narrows his eyes at him. “If I am, are you done pretending to study?”

Taemin smiles, totally unrepentant. “Mm.”

Figures.

Jonghyun lets him get away with that much, but then Taemin makes as if to get up, sitting up and scooting towards the foot of the bed, and he can’t have that. He cuts Taemin’s escape off with his leg, grabs him by the shoulder and pulls him back down. Taemin doesn’t fight him, just smiles wider, but Jonghyun still has to explain.

“You’re better off with me. Kibummie’s got the TV, he’s studying history.”

Taemin takes that in. “I tried saying sorry yesterday and he just asked what for.”

Minho’s saying sorry right now. Jonghyun’s been saying it all day today, even if he’s not sure why he should have to. Kibum is so thick-skinned almost nothing gets to him, but somehow the four of them always do. Jonghyun doesn’t know what’s worse, the things that come out of Kibum’s mouth when his feelings get hurt, or the way they eat at Kibum later. He hasn’t been able to look any of them in the eye since, least of all Manager Hyung, and every way they find to tell him they’ve moved on first will just make it worse, until Kibum forgets himself, and catches up.

No one did anything that bad.

“Taemin-ah…” Jonghyun begins, and that’s as far as he thought ahead. He waits for something to come to him, watching Taemin listen to his silence, and getting nowhere.

“What?” Taemin says, when he’s had enough of that. He gives Jonghyun like two seconds to come up with an answer, before he’s saying in a rush, “Netizens are stupid, hyung. If you’re still letting them get to you, you’re being stupid too.” Jonghyun’s not sure how to take that, if it should make him smile like this. Taemin’s serious, though. He frowns, tells Jonghyun, “You were the best singer out of all of us. I would know, I was there the whole time. They weren’t.”

Even if Taemin’s not right, he’s not wrong, either. Jonghyun will just go ahead and believe him, if it’s that important to him.

“If I’m not allowed to think about it, you aren’t either,” Jonghyun says. That doesn’t do the things to Taemin’s face that he wants it to, so he smooths his fingers over Taemin’s brow, brushes his hair back from his forehead. Asks, “You’re not, right?”

Taemin just looks at him for the longest time. Finally he says, “There was this noona at my old school, she told everyone we were dating.”

“Were you?”

“No,” Taemin blurts out, almost before Jonghyun finishes, then rewards him, wrinkling his nose, smiling. “She didn’t even like me, she always followed me around asking for your number.”

And suddenly it’s not funny anymore, maybe it never was.

“How come you never told me about her?”

Taemin never tells him anything, he always makes Jonghyun guess. All that means is Jonghyun and Taemin end up going through the same thing years apart. All that time she was bothering Taemin, maybe he looked at Jonghyun and felt alone, maybe Jonghyun made things harder on him, and now Jonghyun is looking at him, and feeling like shit for not knowing.

“There was nothing you could have done, hyung,” Taemin says, like he’s read his mind. He tries to make it okay, turn it into a joke, “She wasn’t your style, anyway,” but Jonghyun doesn’t want to hear it.

Somehow the first thing out of his mouth is, “I don’t have a style, and you know that’s not what I meant,” and then he gets it right. “I can’t do anything for you if you don’t tell me stuff, I don’t even get to try.” And even if Taemin can’t ignore him now he knows it won’t do any good, he knows that, but still, “Talking helps sometimes, Taeminnie.”

Sure enough, Taemin talks back straight away. “Sometimes it doesn’t.”

“How would you know?” Jonghyun pinches Taemin’s cheek, waits his frustration out, until he can gentle his voice enough to say, “Try it first.”

“She wasn’t that bad, Manager Hyung even met her once,” Taemin says, but he probably just means she wasn’t the worst. Taemin’s not going there, though. “Anyway, maybe she wasn’t the one who posted about it, it could’ve been anyone at that school, but it’s the only thing I can think of. Otherwise they just made someone up.”

Most of the time the easiest way to explain rumors about them is that there is no explanation, and Jonghyun kind of wants to say that now, if it’ll get Taemin to forget about it. Instead he’s lying here trying to figure out how to tell him that no one at his school had anything on Jonghyun and the others, and that girl never followed any of them, just Taemin. And this all started with one person.

Eventually, carefully, Jonghyun says, “What did Manager Hyung think of her?”

It sounds so weird out loud, expecting Taemin to remember something like that, and once it’s out there, he wishes he hadn’t asked.

Taemin doesn’t even have to think about it, though. “I don’t know, you know how he is. I kept telling him she wasn’t my girlfriend, but he acted like he knew better.”

That could mean a lot of things. It could mean nothing. Whether he was joking or not, Manager Hyung could have said something about it, to someone, at some point. Or he could have kept it to himself. He might still remember this girl, or he might not, the same way he might remember pounding Jinki’s back as he puked his guts out on the side of the road, each of the million times Kibum’s pestered him to eat right, all the useless stuff Jonghyun’s told him when he’s nervous and he has to talk to someone. Maybe deep down he really does hate them, or maybe he got drunk with someone who got drunk with someone else, maybe there’s someone in his life who thought it’d be funny to make his job hell. Maybe it’s not even about the five of them.

Or maybe Jonghyun is the problem, maybe he’s making things into something they’re not. Seeing things that aren’t there, because they’re all he knows to look for.

Maybe, maybe.

Anyway. Right now Taemin can see everything on his face, even if he doesn’t know how to read it. Jonghyun needs to do something about that, before Taemin starts trying to figure him out on his own.

When he picks up where they left off, it feels like it’s grown heavy with time. Still, he prompts Taemin, “You broke up with her too, at some point.”

“I guess? I wasn’t there for that part, I don’t know how she’s doing now. She’s never shown up at a fan signing or anything,” Taemin says.

“You’re not curious at all? How she ended things?”

He only says it to say something, but Jonghyun can tell he got Taemin to think about it. He’s making that face he always makes, so dumb it’s cute. He knows the second Taemin gives up, too, mouth curling.

“She’s probably done with you too, she’s probably an EXO-L now. Maybe she’d ask me for Jonginnie’s number if I saw her again.”

Jonghyun doesn’t know if Taemin wants him to play along, grump about people stealing his fans, or if he keeps pushing her off on Jonghyun so he doesn’t have to go back to her part in his own life. He leaves it there.

“So you’ve never had a girlfriend,” Jonghyun says instead. Taemin basically admitted it earlier and now he doesn’t try to deny it, just goes pink, and Jonghyun can’t stop the smile from coming to his face. He decides to be generous. “It’s okay. That means you’ve never had a breakup, either.”

Taemin answers him with a smirk. “Not like you?”

All Jonghyun has to say to that is, “You’d have to date first,” this close to laughing now, strange fluttery feeling in his stomach. Before he can stop himself he tells Taemin, “You haven’t had your first love yet,” and maybe it’s a question.

Taemin gives him what he wants so fast Jonghyun almost misses it. “I was five.”

“That doesn’t count, Taeminnie,” he says, after he’s pretended to think about it. “You should be able to remember it.”

Taemin rolls onto his back, away from him. Long before Jonghyun would get bored, watching Taemin’s blush steal up his face, Taemin smiles to himself, and Jonghyun only gets half of it.

“Then…I was thirteen.”

“That’s when I met you.” Jonghyun raises himself on one elbow, so they’re face-to-face again. Taemin meets his eyes easily enough, but it gets Jonghyun nowhere. Taemin has nothing to add, nothing more to say. Like, that’s it. The end. Suddenly Jonghyun is so frustrated with him he can’t see straight. “Is it someone I know?”

Taemin hesitates, then, “Nope,” rolling onto his side, away from Jonghyun again, but he hesitated, and now he’s not looking, and.

“Did they train with us?” No answer, and two seconds later, before Jonghyun can stop himself, “Do you still see them ever?”

No answer again, and Jonghyun closes his hand over Taemin’s shoulder. Taemin just curls in on himself, hides some more, and the only thing left is to climb over to the other side. Jonghyun swings one leg over him, knee sinking into the blanket, when suddenly Taemin twists around, throwing his arm out, catching Jonghyun across the chest and knocking the wind out of him. Next thing, his back hits the mattress and Taemin’s staring down at him, hunched over him, hand warm through Jonghyun’s shirt, rubbing where his lungs used to be. Like that’ll help. 

Taemin isn’t too sorry about it, and he doesn’t wait for Jonghyun to catch up before he huffs, “You don’t see me asking about you.”

“Go ahead,” Jonghyun retorts. He means it, too, even if Taemin never asks him anything, and Jonghyun never makes him. Even if all that gets him now is a reaction. Taemin blinks, takes his hand away, sits back on his legs. Doesn’t take it too well when Jonghyun says, “There’s no way you confessed, you can barely talk to me.”

“I’m talking to you right now, hyung,” Taemin tells him, like Jonghyun is being stupid on purpose. It’s not that Taemin’s being impossible, or anything.

“You’re single since birth,” Jonghyun accuses him.

Taemin flops back onto the bed, face like he’s about to explode, or laugh, or something, but he doesn’t do anything about it. Just smiles at Jonghyun like he can’t help it, and lets him try again.

“You haven’t even had your first kiss.”

As soon as he says it he knows it hasn’t worked, and then it goes wrong, little by little, and by the time he knows to look, Taemin’s smile has shifted into something he hasn’t seen before, and he’s not sure he’s supposed to be seeing it now, too strange, too bright, too new, like a secret.

“What, are you saying you have?” comes out of Jonghyun before he knows what he’s saying, and that’s how he finds out he can still talk.

Too late, Taemin tries to get his expression under control. For a split second Jonghyun thinks Taemin might laugh. Instead he tries to give Jonghyun an answer, stops short at, “I didn’t say anything,” but his voice tells Jonghyun everything he needs to know.

“When?” he demands. “With who?”

When Jonghyun wrestles the pillow away from him, Taemin goes for his book in its place. He doesn’t even pretend to read it the way he did earlier, skinny arms stretched straight up. Just cracks it open and covers his face with it, and Jonghyun’s left talking to English for Intermediate Learners.

“Tell me, Taemin-ah.” Nothing. “Taemin-ah~” More nothing, and he can’t take it, it’s making him crazy. Nothing nothing nothing. “I don’t believe you. If you don’t tell me I won’t.”

“That’s your problem,” Taemin says, kind of muffled. “You wouldn’t believe me even if I did.”

What is that supposed to mean?

Jonghyun gives Taemin a minute, two minutes, three. Four. At some point he realizes he’s waiting for Taemin to make him understand, realizes how stupid that is. The hardest thing then is getting himself to _stop._ He knows he won’t, and he doesn’t. He’s still lying here staring and staring. He has to do something about that.

He tries to reach Taemin instead.

“Mine was with Jihye,” he says. She was his first everything. Most of those memories have nothing to do with Taemin, and a lot of them come from before Jonghyun even knew him, but still, “You remember her, you met her a few times.” She tried really hard to steal Taemin from Jonghyun too, bought him snacks and asked him questions, called him cute and made him call her noona. All that did was make Taemin avoid Jonghyun, to avoid her. Anyway. “It was on the train on the way to school. The sun was rising. We were talking and I was kind of leaning in so she could hear me. Suddenly she turned to look at me, and she was so—”

“You ever think if I don’t ask it’s because I don’t want to know?” Taemin cuts in loudly. “What’s the point in remembering all that stuff now, what’s the point in talking about her?” 

Taemin leaves him there while he struggles with himself, long enough for Jonghyun to remember all the bad things Taemin won’t say out loud. Not her face that day, so pretty Jonghyun could have spent his whole life looking at her. The drama, the fights, the tears, the silences, the end. In the meantime, Taemin finds the breath to get as far as, “I’m not like you, hyung. There’s no point, I don’t even know why we’re talking about this,” and that’s enough.

“Why are you getting mad at me?” Jonghyun says, as gently as he can. He reaches up and takes the book away, finds the same Taemin as before, flushed and fighting to meet Jonghyun’s eyes. Maybe brushing his hair back from his face does Taemin no good, maybe he doesn’t even want Jonghyun to touch him, but still, everything settles inside Jonghyun. Suddenly it’s so easy for him to say, “If I’m doing something wrong, don’t wait for me to stop on my own. You can tell me that much, at least. Mm?” Pushing his palm into Taemin’s forehead, making him nod, “Mm?”

Of all things Taemin smiles. He puts his heart into it too, shy and painful. Jonghyun only has a few seconds to look, before Taemin grabs his wrist, says, “Stop it,” and Jonghyun lets him lift his hand away, lets him hold onto it, too. Then, a couple breaths later, “It’s not my fault you don’t listen.”

Jonghyun takes that in, and takes Taemin in. Takes him all the way back to the beginning, and tries again.

“The first time’s always bad, Taeminnie,” he says. “Nobody knows what they’re doing right away, would that make any sense?” Taemin doesn’t laugh, doesn’t roll his eyes, doesn’t anything, just looks at him. Jonghyun’s not sure what Taemin is waiting for, if Taemin needs to hear it, if Jonghyun should shut up, or what, but he can’t not try. “The second should be better.”

Right as he’s saying it, he wants to take it back. For all he knows, Taemin is on his third kiss. He doesn’t know _anything._ Taemin won’t tell him, either, he doesn’t even want to, and now Jonghyun can’t ask. There’s nothing he can do about it. Just like that, he’s back to lying here and looking at Taemin and knowing he doesn’t know everything about him.

“Dinner.”

Kibum.

Jonghyun wasn’t finished, he doesn’t know the ending, but suddenly there are other people again, suddenly it’s not just the two of them.

Time’s up. Taemin doesn’t want to go back, and he doesn’t wait for Jonghyun to catch up, either, just crawls over him. Jonghyun lays there and thinks about keeping him again, hooking a leg around Taemin’s knees and bringing him down, grabbing his wrist and holding him back, saying something. He lets Taemin go.

And once there are other things in his head, too, he gets up and follows him out.

 

The next time the five of them are called in to work, Jonghyun figures they’re in for more meetings. Instead they’re pulled into a vocal room and introduced to the next six months of their lives: “Sherlock.”

Jonghyun’s first thought is that this song was built for Taemin. His second is that he hopes the rest of them will be able to keep up with him, and that the choreography isn’t completely insane. And then there’s a lot of stuff. Dubstep is a thing, but he’s never really thought they’d make it theirs. The high notes get higher with every single, and just because SM knows Jonghyun can handle it, doesn’t mean they have to do it to him. But he can, so he will. And he could write better lyrics than these, too, and they never even gave him a chance, but for the first time since two summers ago, they’re in Korean. He doesn’t think they’ll taste too bad in the time it takes him to drill them into his memory, and forget what he’s even singing.

So he’s okay with it, and that’s all. But right now it’s not Shinee, it’s just some song. He has to know what it’ll look like and sound like. He needs time before he can learn to love it.

He’s out of it already. For now. Apparently this is a moment Jonghyun should have had a while back. Apparently this is all coming too late, apparently he’s had all the time in the world. At least that’s what the rep Creative sent to deal with them is saying.

“You were given the guide a few days ago. There’s no excuse to come unprepared.”

The vocal coach SM brought in to check their progress is fine cancelling today’s session, letting them download the demo onto their phones now, and playing catch up with them later. He and Jonghyun and the other four go all the way back to their trainee days, way before any of them knew they’d debut, but as far as Jonghyun knows the Creative rep is new, and she doesn’t give a shit. She’s just here to do her job. If someone else didn’t do theirs, because none of them were given anything until just now, that’s their problem. Not hers.

Jinki apologizes.

“This is the company’s time you’re wasting, not just your own,” she tells him, so obviously frustrated Jonghyun’s relieved when she takes a couple deep breaths instead of yelling. “Where is your manager? Park Joomin-ssi?”

“He’ll be back to pick us up,” Jinki says. And again, he’s sorry, he’s at fault.

Maybe a minute passes before she realizes that’s all she’s going to get out of him, that Jinki is more loyal than he is smart. She spends the next few telling them off, until finally she decides her own time is most important, and moves on. Which, whatever. It’s not like the whole Creative team doesn’t have Manager Hyung’s number, it’s not like SM doesn’t already keep him on the hook all day everyday. And it’s not like Jonghyun and the others need him here to babysit them, either, or like they need to know exactly where he is and what he’s doing twenty-four seven. So there was a mix-up, a breakdown in communication, whatever. They’ll make up for lost time sooner or later. Manager Hyung, too.

That’s as much as Jonghyun lets himself think about it.

And anyway, “Sherlock.”

Line distribution.

She says she was just here to answer any questions or concerns they have about it, but she ends up going over the song with them instead. Jonghyun can’t make out any of the internal Creative stuff she consults on her phone, peering over her shoulder, but he forgets all about it when she takes his lyric sheet and starts marking it up, line-by-line.

This isn’t how it’s supposed to go. Just as everything gets divided up and decided for them before they ever see it, they’re always given time to learn their parts away from SM’s eyes. However they take what they get, disappointment, jealousy, stress, whatever, it’s none of SM’s business, as long as they don’t bring it into work with them in the end, as long as they stay professional. The five of them go through it separately, too, at least to start with, at home, at the gym, on walks, in the van, in the shower, wherever they can grab five minutes alone with their headphones, or try singing their lines. Then they take the song into the practice room together. And maybe it’s just him, maybe it doesn’t get to Taemin, but Jonghyun always hates the first time they run through it as a group. He’s always spent all that time leading up to it watching Taemin convince himself he just hasn’t worked hard enough yet, and pretend the few lines he gets are enough for him.

That’s all gone now. It’s over before it begins.

Taemin’s not pretending.

For the first time, he doesn’t need to.

And for the first time, Jinki does.

She doesn’t see through him, though, doesn’t clock how strained his smile is or the way he has to make himself look at her, the moment he stops really listening, because she’s never met him. To her, he’s just Onew.

And as for Taemin, she leaves them with this thought:

“We want to show a new side of Taemin-goon with this comeback. We think it’s time.”

It isn’t a new side of Taemin to anyone who knows him. Jonghyun has seen it, day after day in the practice room, after hours, time off, doesn’t matter. He’s heard about it, those rare times Taemin feels like talking, when he’s too busy or too tired and has to give it a rest. He’s been there, whenever Taemin needed his help, or wanted his advice.

So it’s about time.

And now it’s turned out like this. Jonghyun doesn’t know why Taemin looks so caught out, why he didn’t expect this much, after everything he’s put into training his voice. He doesn’t want to know why Taemin doesn’t smile back at him, and takes it so badly when Jonghyun tries to congratulate him. And he thinks it’d be better if he didn’t know what’s making Taemin snatch glances at Jinki in between staring at his feet, because Jonghyun can’t do anything about it, and he can’t wish it on himself instead.

Finally Jinki catches Taemin’s eye, and this time when he smiles, somehow it’s for real.

“If they made the songs any longer we’d have to give up radio. Music shows, too, probably,” Jinki says. Jonghyun knows he’s trying to tell Taemin he’d have to take from one of them to get anything for himself, but still, Taemin’s face falls, and all of the sudden he can’t meet Jonghyun’s eyes, either. Jinki doesn’t wait for him to get over it, just says, “Should I learn how to rap, too?” and laughs at himself.

Even when it’s about him, Jinki always says the wrong thing.

Kibum snorts. “Don’t steal my parts, just because Taeminnie stole yours.”

“Or mine,” Minho says.

Taemin has nothing to say to any of that. Jonghyun’s not sure if he should be helping them turn this into a joke, until Taemin can laugh at it too, or if he should take care of Taemin first.

Before he can do either, Jinki goes for a third way: forgetting about it and moving on. “Manager Hyung won’t get back till five. What are you guys going to do?”

“Did he ever say where he was going?” Minho says, instead of answering.

He looks around at all of them, like any of them could tell him, but Jinki is the only one who would know. He’s the leader and Manager Hyung’s favorite on top of that, so everything goes through him. And if half gets lost in translation, the hope is that it’s not the important stuff.

“Just that his phone would be off. Some kind of appointment, or something,” Jinki replies. When Minho looks like he might push, he goes on, “Manager Hyung doesn’t ask us about stuff like that, and he’s actually supposed to, so.”

That’s not enough for Minho, though. “How do you know it’s personal?” And, “We don’t do it during work hours. He never used to, either,” and, when nobody backs him up and he still can’t let it go, “We don’t get to ignore _him._ He’s called me in the middle of dates before.”

Jonghyun, too, but that’s probably karma for all the times he’s used Manager Hyung as an excuse to blow people off. And anyway, more importantly, who cares. Jonghyun is fine staying or going, but he has to find out what Taemin needs first, if he wants a way out, if he’d rather be alone for a while maybe.

“Do you have homework, Taeminnie?” he says, first thing he comes up with, because he doesn’t think he can just ask Taemin if he wants to go home early.

He should have known better. Taemin just shoots him this look like, _How is that important right now?_ Jonghyun gives him one in return, tries to say with his face what he can’t with words, but maybe that goes even worse, because as soon as Taemin sees what Jonghyun is thinking he doesn’t even get it, just says, “Are you really tired? Are you going to leave?”

Jonghyun says he’s not going anywhere, he’s fine, and can’t find another way to get Taemin to admit it if he’s not. And somehow that settles it. They’re all fine, they’re all going to stick around. Sooner is better than later, and they might as well do this here.

The only thing Jonghyun can do for Taemin now, either way, is put his hand on his shoulder, keep close to him.

“If I’m stuck here all afternoon, I want to breathe free air,” Jinki says. It’s just another stupid thing to say, until he turns to Taemin, and goes on, “Do you want to go up to the roof with me?” Taemin hesitates, only relaxing when Jonghyun gives his shoulder a squeeze, lets him know he’s tensing up. Then Jinki tries again, says, “Like old times, Taeminnie. Hyung will buy you a snack~”

They had lunch like an hour ago, and there’s no way even Taemin could be hungry again, but that does it. Taemin ditches Jonghyun, lets Jinki reel him in and pinch his cheek. Listens to him when he says, “I already forgot which parts were mine, where did that paper go~” and comes back to Jonghyun for the sheet still in his hand.

Jonghyun only has a couple seconds to say something, if he’s going to, if that’s not all. The first thing he comes up with is, “It’s too cold, Taemin-ah,” and that’s useless, so he wrestles his hoodie off and pushes it into Taemin’s chest, fetches his coat too and returns in time to help Taemin put his head and arms through the right holes.

Taemin emerges pink-faced and tousle-haired, so cute Jonghyun overlooks it when he doesn’t let Jonghyun bundle him into the next layer. The best Taemin can do at saying thank you is, “It’s okay, I can find mine, at least I don’t think I left it in the van,” and, in response to the look Jonghyun gives him, “You’ll be stuck here until I’m done, if you don’t want to freeze.”

“Aigoo. I’ll wait for you.”

And that’s all it takes. Taemin smiles at him like normal, bright and happy.

 

Everyone else scatters, so Jonghyun stays right where he is. He gets through the afternoon, just him and “Sherlock” alone in the vocal room, until Minho comes to collect him. Early, too, Jonghyun’s first look at the clock since he started tells him as much. And all Minho does is sit down in one of the chairs in the corner of the room, look on his face like he wants to talk.

To Jonghyun, of all people. If that’s not a first, it’s close enough. “What?”

“Nothing,” Minho says. He lasts five seconds before he begins again, “Just…” and all Jonghyun has to do is shrug, reach up to put his headphones back on, and Minho comes out with it. “Is there something going on with Manager Hyung?”

“What do you mean?” Jonghyun blurts out, before he can even think. The next second he’s recovered, he’s saying, “Why are you asking me? Jinki hyung would know better,” and all that’s left is to wait and see if Minho sees right through him.

Minho takes his time answering, but Jonghyun wasn’t really asking for one. Jonghyun knows what Jinki is like. Talking to him about your own problems is one thing, but asking him about anything usually ends up being a waste of the time. It can take a hundred years just to get nothing out of him.

“Manager Hyung’s been weird lately,” Minho says finally. “He forgets stuff all the time. Big stuff. Like today, for example.”

Jonghyun doesn’t really care either way, but Jinki’s not here to do it, so he says, “Maybe SM screwed up, maybe he never got anything from them. It’s easier for them to put the blame on someone else.”

“Well, we took it in the end.”

Minho’s tone, his wide eyes, and the stubborn set of his jaw all tell Jonghyun the injustice is too much. Suddenly Jonghyun’s on the verge of laughing, and he really can’t do that, or Minho might explode. Figures Minho’s not over it. Figures, if that’s all this is about.

Still, Jonghyun has to ask. “If you’re so pissed about it, why are you talking to me instead of Manager Hyung? That isn’t like you.”

“It’s not like that,” Minho says, so fast Jonghyun doesn’t catch it right away, and then there’s more, and it’s all the stuff he was probably dying to say earlier this afternoon. “He never answers his phone anymore. If I text him now he always says he didn’t catch it. And every night, he’ll get a million calls and messages or whatever, and he just ignores them and plays games instead.” Jonghyun’s never noticed any of this, probably because he doesn’t spend his free time watching Manager Hyung. At Jonghyun’s look, Minho says, “He won’t turn the sound off. It’s really annoying. You have your headphones in all the time, you wouldn’t know.”

“He’s off the clock then,” Jonghyun points out, instead of telling Minho that maybe he should try a little harder at the whole not knowing thing himself.

Minho retorts, “He’s on the clock right now,” and then, before Jonghyun can figure out the best way to not go down this road, out of nowhere, “Do you think he has debt problems? Like he borrowed money from the wrong people, or something?”

“What? No.” As soon as he’s said it, Jonghyun kind of wishes he’d gone with it, but it’s too late, and it’s not like it would’ve been funny, anyway. Now he’s just trying to figure out how much he should say. Finally he asks, “How long has he been weird?”

Minho doesn’t even have to think about it. He’s way ahead of Jonghyun.

“That’s the other thing,” he bursts out, “I wasn’t going to bring it up, but.”

And then he shuts himself up anyway, and Jonghyun can’t keep his patience, stop himself from saying, “But what, Minho-yah,” stomach tightening, because what if this is about what he thinks it is, what if Jonghyun’s not the only one who’s crazy.

And then Minho starts up with, “Those rumors,” and Jonghyun’s heart starts to go too. He’s so stupid, this is all so stupid. Minho doesn’t care what he thinks, though, now that he’s decided not to. On a deep breath, he says, “They blew up in the morning but they spread over night. And not just on fansites, at the company, too, the coordi noonas said so. The whole staff, Art, Communications, Creative, them, everybody knew. But Manager Hyung found out when we did. He was on his phone all night, and he ignored everything, _again.”_

Whatever Jonghyun was expecting that wasn’t it. His first thought is that it’s not the same thing after all. That’s not the first time Manager Hyung’s fucked up and it won’t be the last, it’s just where Minho’s frustrations with him began, and now here Jonghyun is, on the other end of them. Minho’s never learned to let anything go.

“And you haven’t said anything to him?” Jonghyun says, because it’s his turn, Minho’s waiting. He knows he’s repeating himself.

“If I thought it would help, I would. But you know how Manager Hyung is, there’s no talking to him. If you say something to him, he’ll turn it into something bad, he’ll just hate himself.” Jonghyun does know. That’s the problem. And sooner or later Jonghyun’s going to have to say some of this out loud, any of it, pretty soon Minho’s going to get frustrated with him too. Like right now. “You don’t know anything, hyung? Is it just me?”

“Is what just you?”

Jinki.

Jonghyun swings around to look automatically. His brain catches up to his body, too late. Minho’s already saying, “About Manager Hyung,” and then Jonghyun is just relieved Taemin isn’t here too, listening as he takes Jinki through everything again, and keeps right on going. Manager Hyung hasn’t been himself. Manager Hyung has been slacking off. Manager Hyung is ducking calls, messing up and avoiding things, and probably people, too. Not working his way around them, not dealing with them on their terms instead of his, not drinking them away, just avoiding them. Maybe he’s avoiding the five of them right now. Manager Hyung, Manager Hyung, Manager Hyung.

Finally he circles back to the point: Manager Hyung wasn’t on top of those rumors.

All Jonghyun has to do is keep his mouth shut and not say, _Manager Hyung is probably where those rumors started._ It’s Jinki’s problem now. And then for the first time in his life, the first thing out of Jinki’s mouth is a real answer.

“He’s been having trouble with his contract renewal, the company won’t give him anything. I don’t know if I should be telling you, but that’s as much as he’s told me,” Jinki says. “They think they own him. They probably think they can just replace him, too.”

Oh.

Okay.

That sucks.

Jonghyun sucks.

“Like anyone else would want his job,” is the only thing he thinks of that he can actually say. Most people would have burnt out by now. And he knows that’s as much as Jinki can say, knows he won’t be able to tell Jonghyun whether Manager Hyung himself is thinking about cutting his losses and quitting, if he hates his job, if he’s done sucking it up finally. Done with them. So instead he changes direction, says the first good thing that comes into his head. “Taeminnie?”

“Bathroom,” Jinki says.

Maybe Jonghyun should try that excuse. Before he can, Minho opens his mouth, just comes out and says it the way he always does.

“What about Manager Hyung, does he want out?” When Jinki doesn’t get it right away, Minho barrels on ahead. “Isn’t he making things harder on himself, ignoring SM? On us, too. It makes no sense, it’s not like him.”

And Jonghyun has had enough, he wants to be done. He tries laughing it off. Nudging Minho, making a face, he says, “What, avoiding work calls, letting the stress get to him is his way of saying fuck you? Do you think he’s doing it on purpose, or something?”

As he’s saying it kind of hits him that it’s not very funny. Maybe “fuck you” isn’t in Manager Hyung’s vocabulary, but it doesn’t really have to be.

The exact moment it hits Minho too, Jonghyun knows. But then Minho turns it around, makes it weird, asks him, “Do you?”

And that’s not what Jonghyun meant, and he’s never thought that. There’s a difference between letting off steam, letting things out, and holding onto them just to throw them back in their faces. Between time and other people twisting the truth, and getting enough wrong just to hide who it’s coming from. There’s a difference between Manager Hyung talking to someone about a job that’s also his life, telling the wrong person stuff about his days with the five of them, and telling the Internet shit about Shinee now that it won’t hurt him.

“My parents couldn’t get out of work, so Manager Hyung took me to fix my nose,” Minho says, like he’s feeling his way, thinking out loud. “I’ve known the guy who broke it since I was like five, I know his whole family, he’s that kind of friend. And I know you guys didn’t say anything to anyone.”

Jinki pinches Minho’s cheeks, a little too hard from the looks of it. “Who does Manager Hyung even have to talk to, come on. Stop it or I’ll get mad.”

Somehow Jonghyun’s never thought about that. This whole time he’s started with the idea that everybody’s got someone, family, friends, drinking buddies, whatever, just someone. Now he just wants to know who Manager Hyung has besides them. Now that’s all he wants to know.

Minho doesn’t care about any of that, and Jinki should have tried harder if he wanted to shut him up. All he did was get him going.

“Why did he have to talk to anyone? He’s not an old man, he’s plugged in,” Minho says, eyes wide, like he knows they don’t want to listen and he has to make them. “For all we know, he’s at a job interview right now. Maybe he’s on his way out, maybe he’s got nothing to lose. He hasn’t had a life for years, and he’s always stuck dealing with our shit. I don’t care how nice you are, nobody could keep that in forever. Maybe—”

Maybe Minho needs to bite his fucking tongue, because the door’s just opened, and Taemin and Kibum walk in. And this conversation feels like it’s gone on forever but somehow Jonghyun’s surprised to see time passed like normal, because it’s five already, and Manager Hyung’s with them, he’s here too, like he said he would be. There’s no way they overheard anything but that last part, this room is soundproofed, but in this moment it doesn’t matter. The three of them can tell right away when the air goes weird, Jonghyun can tell right away, just looking at them. Kibum at least. Definitely. His eyes pass over Minho and Jinki, before they settle on Jonghyun, and read him like a book.

They’re going to have to talk about this.

“Keep what in?” Taemin says, from all the way across the galaxy.

“Jonghyunnie got rejected again~” Jinki tells him, out of nowhere. Out of his ass.

And it’s such an obvious lie, and Taemin should know that better than Kibum and Manager Hyung, but he’s Taemin, so instead he’s surprised into staring at Jonghyun, and saying, “When did you find the time, what about that other girl you—” _Just broke up with._

Jonghyun claps his hand over Taemin’s mouth in time, so the words are lost in his palm, warm and wet. Nobody else here needs to know the truth, not the other three, and definitely not Manager Hyung. Jonghyun only has to let him know if things get serious, and only then so he can help Jonghyun keep it secret. Maybe Jonghyun’s never told him anything because he wanted to, maybe he’s never thought about whether Manager Hyung would know the difference.

Now is probably not the time to start.

 

Day after Christmas, no schedules after lunch, and Manager Hyung’s taken the afternoon off. They only know he’s attending a high school reunion because they asked. All that means is he’ll be gone for a while. And yet here they are, sitting in a circle on their bedroom floor, door shut, voices hushed, like a secret.

“If this is about something Manager Hyung doesn’t need to know, then I’m pretty sure I don’t either.”

Kibum says it like he means it, but Jonghyun knows him better than that. He’s chewing on his lip, arms crossed tight across his chest, watching all their faces, and really, he’s asking.

Jinki won’t say anything, sitting through this is as far as he’ll go. So Jonghyun puts Kibum out of his misery, says, “It’s about him, Kibum-ah. When we want to talk about you we’ll leave you out,” but all that gets him is a look, one from Taemin too.

He thinks he’s going to have try again, but Minho gets there first. “We think he had something to do with the rumors about us from last week. I think he could have posted them, even.”

No going back now. It’s out there.

Kibum needs a minute to process that, before he hacks out a disbelieving laugh, and comes back at them with, _“What?”_ And that’s all. He’s not going to snap, bite their heads off or laugh them out of the room. That’s good, that’s a start. Taemin is harder on Jonghyun. His eyes never left him, and now they’re so wide, and Taemin’s whole face has fallen open, like somehow Jonghyun is supposed to make things make sense. Taemin buzzes under Jonghyun’s skin, eats him up inside, until Jonghyun can’t take it.

So he does his best.

“If they came from anyone, they came from him,” Jonghyun says. In the end it doesn’t sound any more or less crazy out loud than it does in his head, and it’s easier to move on from there than he’d thought. “Anyone can see I’m a visual, all they have to do is look at me,” and no one laughs, “and a lot of people at SM would know about Minho’s nose, but he was there for Minho’s surgery. Kibummie—”

“He always says he wants to lose weight, is it my fault he never sticks with a diet, am I a bad person for helping him? How does that become starving people?”

Jinki cuts across him, says, “Nobody wants that kind of help, trust me,” and when Kibum opens his mouth to retort—

“And with Jinki hyung’s thing, he sobered up on the ride over, he was fine by the time he got to work. No one else ever knew about it, except for me and Manager Hyung,” Jonghyun says in a rush. And then finally he has to meet Taemin’s eyes again, because it’s his turn, and he doesn’t know what kind of face he’s making, what Taemin sees. “You said he met that girl, Taeminnie. He thought she was your girlfriend, for real.”

Ghost of a smile on his face, like he hadn’t even thought as far ahead as Taemin’s rumor, Minho demands, “What girl?”

Taemin ignores him. Says to Jonghyun, “Why would he still remember that?” And then it’s almost like he’s trying to find the right answer, the thing that will change Jonghyun’s mind. “He was just joking probably,” and, “It was just that one time,” and, “You guys would have said the same thing.”

Not Jonghyun. His protest is already on the tip of his tongue when he cuts himself off, stops being stupid, says instead, “Maybe he doesn’t remember. Maybe he told someone about it when it happened, and they do.”

That gets exactly nowhere with Taemin, because Minho talks over Jonghyun, says, “Manager Hyung’s got a long memory, Taeminnie, that’s kind of his job. And maybe you haven’t dated, but the rest of us have. You don’t know what it’s like, he has to know who, what, when, where, why. It’s like telling your parents.”

He’s exaggerating. Jonghyun’s gotten away with telling Manager Hyung almost nothing before, because Manager Hyung hates to ask. Minho probably just doesn’t realize how much. Still, it’s not like Minho’s got it wrong, it’s not like he’s not telling the truth. It’s not like any of this isn’t true.

Jinki breaks his silence, and cuts through all that.

“You guys have no proof. You do realize that, right? Like, maybe you think this is the only explanation that makes sense, but that’s just you. You’re just going off what you know, but there’s a lot more you don’t. A lot, a lot.” Jinki has to stop to breathe, and when he can talk again, all he says is, “And you know Manager Hyung.”

Jonghyun’s had all those thoughts before, too, and now he has them again.

Not Minho, though.

“Then let’s just ask him.”

And Jonghyun has never had that thought. He doesn’t think about it now, either, just sits tight and waits for someone else to deal with it. And maybe he’s the one who started this, but suddenly there are a million other things he’d rather be doing right now. There’s _nothing_ he wouldn’t rather be doing. Just this once, he wishes they hadn’t had the afternoon off, wishes their schedule had run late this morning, or that something had come up, kept Manager Hyung from having his own life.

No one else speaks up. Minutes pass.

Jonghyun’s still kind of looking for a way out when he says, “And you’ll just believe whatever he tells you? You won’t keep thinking about it, you’ll forget everything we just talked about?” When Minho nods and nods, like each question is easier than the last, Jonghyun gives up. Either Minho’s not being honest with himself, or he’s so different from Jonghyun there’s no point asking. “You’re the one who said he could have posted it himself, Minho-yah.”

“If you talk to him you’re just doing it for yourself,” Jinki says, before Minho can reply. “You can’t just ask people stuff like that. How would you like it if you were Manager Hyung, and I asked you?”

There’s nothing Minho can say to defend himself, when they all know exactly how he’d take that, and not well is an understatement. But then Kibum of all people jumps in, says, “How would he know, he’s not Manager Hyung, that’s the whole point,” and, careful to look anywhere but him, “I don’t know if Minho’s right, but he’s not wrong, either.”

“What do you think, Taeminnie?” Minho says.

Taemin doesn’t do well with four pairs of eyes on him, even if it’s just them. Just as Jonghyun’s thinking that maybe he should be helping him, Taemin turns to him again, and says in a weird voice, “How long have you been blaming Manager Hyung? Did everyone know but me?”

“It’s not like that, Taeminnie,” Jonghyun replies quickly, and then he can’t think of the next thing. He’s not sure what he’s trying to say, that he doesn’t hate Manager Hyung, or he hasn’t been keeping things from Taemin, when he never wanted to say _anything._

It’s too late for that. Taemin’s stopped looking at Jonghyun. And now he says, to his knees, “It’s over and done with, it was just stupid stuff anyway. I don’t see the point of bringing it back up.”

“The point is, we have to be able to trust him. Maybe some of us don’t already,” Kibum says, but he doesn’t mean anything by it, he’s not looking at anyone but Taemin. “If we ask him and he says we’ve misunderstood him, it’ll be just as bad as not saying anything. But there’s always the chance we haven’t.” He sighs. “Maybe the best thing is to ask SM for a change.”

“I’m not doing that to him,” Jinki snaps. This is historic, this is the first time he’s lost his temper since the year they debuted, but it’s not funny or scary or anything, it just makes Jonghyun feel like shit. “The only reason we’re talking about this at all is to clear the air. I’m dealing with this shit so he doesn’t have to, he’s got real problems to worry about.”

His contract. His life. Money, stress, loneliness. And that’s only as much as Jonghyun can guess.

“He’d be the first person to say that our problems _are_ his.” 

It’s out of Jonghyun’s mouth before he knows what he’s saying, and now that he can’t take it back he’s not sure he would. He just hates himself instead.

“You too?” Jinki gives up on talking until he’s taken a couple deep breaths, and then he says with forced patience, “You don’t even think he spread the rumors himself, you just said.”

Jonghyun did, and he doesn’t. The longer this goes, the less that seems to matter, is all. He doesn’t want to tell Jinki that, though, so instead he turns it around. “Then what do you think?”

“That Taeminnie’s right. I think there’s no reason to think about it,” Jinki says, almost before Jonghyun’s got that much out. “People are always going to talk shit about us, but you guys are talking shit about Manager Hyung right now.”

Even if Jonghyun felt like answering him, there’s nothing he could say. Out in the alley, that day Jonghyun showed him the photo, Jinki’s the one who told him that if someone you know has a problem with you, you have to deal with it. And now Jonghyun wants to tell him that he doesn’t have a problem with Manager Hyung, even if Manager Hyung does have a problem with them, but it won’t do any good. Jinki won’t hear anything but that if.

So Kibum leans into Jonghyun’s silence, and says, “Let’s just take a vote. You’re the leader, hyung, but last I checked, this is Shinee, not North Korea.” And then he plows on ahead, says before any of them can agree, “Who votes we talk to him?”

Minho thrusts his arm into the air. Kibum’s eyes travel over them all before his mouth thins, and he follows suit.

“Who votes we let it go?”

Jinki and Taemin this time. When Jonghyun doesn’t do anything either way, they both turn to look at him, and Taemin says, “What about you, hyung?”

Jonghyun thinks this is stupid, trying to turn something with no right answer into a yes-or-no decision. He thinks it’d probably be even stupider to say that.

He thinks he needs to think, so he does. Lies down on his back and stares at the ceiling and keeps them waiting, and thinks.

That gets him nowhere.

“It’s too late to forget about it. If we don’t talk to him, it has to be because we ended things here,” he says finally, because he has to say something, and this is the only thing he’s got. “I’m okay even if he did it. Even if he went online and spread them himself, I’m okay. Nothing changes for me, either way.”

Kibum snorts. “What, you think we should forgive him, just like that?”

If there is anything to forgive.

“You don’t think it’d be better to hear him out, get his side?” Minho says.

If Manager Hyung has a side.

“I’m not saying anything for anyone else, only for myself. If nobody agrees with me, then fine. We need to talk to him.”

This is all so stupid.

“Say you and Minho are right about this. Why is it so easy for you to go from ‘Manager Hyung ran his mouth about us’ to ‘okay, I’ll understand him?’ You can’t just stop there.” Kibum kicks at Jonghyun’s foot when he can’t get a good look at his face. “Blame him or don’t, whatever. It’s his job to stop that kind of shit, hyung, not start it. And anyway, if one of us did it—”

“He’s not one of us,” Jonghyun says shortly. “That’s why.”

 

No one makes him vote in the end, no one even tries. Instead they all decide to take some more time, think it through again. So it’s not over, and who knows when the next chance they’ll have to talk about it will come. And for now they’re all out of things to say to each other, about anything. The day wears on, stiff and silent and never-ending. Jonghyun only gets out to go to the gym, and in the end his body betrays him, because he can’t stay there forever. He has to go home.

Manager Hyung’s room is dark, and everyone else is already in bed when he gets back, so he climbs into his as well, and waits for sleep to find him, same as them.

He waits forever.

Drifts.

Then, suddenly. The apartment door bangs open and there’s a gigantic crash, split second that shatters hours and hours of silence, and before Jonghyun knows what the fuck is happening he’s bolt upright. He loses his footing on his way down and nearly crushes Jinki, lands on his butt on the mattress with a _thwump,_ just in time to see Taemin open his eyes, scrunch his face up, lift his head from his pillow. As soon as Jonghyun can move again he does, pushing Taemin back down and leaving him right where he is.

Jinki catches up to Jonghyun at the doorway, takes him by the shoulders and pushes ahead of him, out into the living room. And all of the sudden Jonghyun is choking on his heart, because what if this is serious, what if someone broke in, he can’t let Jinki go alone.

He walks right into Jinki’s back, fumbling along the wall, and then there’s a click and the room floods with light, and it’s only Manager Hyung, in a drunken heap on the floor. And once Jonghyun’s sure this isn’t a heart attack, he doesn’t know what he’s going to do to the others, crowding around him now, hugging their pillows to their chests, squinting and yawning. They were all here for the part where Manager Hyung didn’t come home last night. No one fucking told Jonghyun this could happen.

“Help me with him,” Jinki says.

Kibum prods his finger into Jonghyun’s back. “Go, hyung. You’re the one with the muscles.”

Jonghyun does what he’s told.

Up close, Manager Hyung looks even worse, red-faced and bleary-eyed. He doesn’t see Jonghyun too until he sinks to his knees next to him, and then he tries talking. “Jonghyun-ah?” Jonghyun nods and gets a smile in return, slow and stupid. It’s easy to duck away when Manager Hyung goes to pinch his cheeks next, slower and stupider. Jonghyun just grabs his wrist and hauls his arm over his shoulders. But he can’t not hear it when he says, right down his earhole, “Thank you. You gave hyung something to brag about.”

“Jonghyun hyung did? Seriously? Wow, he really is drunk.” No shit. He’s also useless, drooling on Jonghyun’s shirt and lolling against him, and Jonghyun thinks he might break his back, heaving him up and getting his legs under him. Kibum’s no help either, sighing at them, clicking his tongue. “Aigoo. Remind me never to go to my high school reunion.” 

Still, when Jonghyun and Jinki half-drag, half-carry him out of the entryway and across the room, Kibum is there, holding Manager Hyung’s door for them, and pushing them out of the way after they’ve dumped him on his bed. Jonghyun is fine letting him take care of the rest, just leans against the wall and takes a breather.

“Don’t you know Shinee?” Manager Hyung slurs, and, “Kid number three on the way. _I_ wanted kids.” He rolls over, and Minho’s there before Jonghyun can work up the energy, pushing him onto his back while Kibum works on his belt.

“You have to get married first. You have to wait for the right person,” Minho tells him loudly, and Jonghyun is pretty sure, pointlessly. Minho might as well tell Manager Hyung next that SM never banned _him_ from dating, see what good that does, but instead Taemin butts in, and says, “You’re only thirty, hyung.”

Which is so much worse, because so is whoever he’s talking about. They started at the same point, and now that guy is probably at home, curled up with his wife, while Manager Hyung is stuck here with the five of them. They both have to get up in the morning, too, and Manager Hyung will be the only one with a hangover.

Manager Hyung moans, pushing his face into the blanket. “I’m zero. All I got was fat.”

Before Taemin can say that no one cares if he is, and he could be fatter, and they’d like him the same, anything else bound to come out wrong, Jonghyun says, “Help me with his jacket, Taeminnie.” 

Taemin does his best, pressed to Jonghyun’s side, warm and sleepy. Kibum finishes up with his socks, and Jinki and Minho roll him up in his blanket and put him on his side, and Taemin closes the door behind them. And somehow that’s it. Jonghyun sneaks glances at all of them, and they’re all wearing the same face, and they all look at him the same way he’s looking at them. And before Jonghyun gets the light, he sees them all again, fifty different versions of Shinee smiling out at him from the fan-made collage Manager Hyung framed and hung up for them back in 2008. Manager Hyung was there for all those pictures. He probably took some of them. And according to them, he doesn’t exist.

Nobody says anything, but the silence is different this time, tired and worn where it had been hard and brittle. Jonghyun’s not in the mood, not at all, but he goes back to not sleeping, and listens to Taemin’s breathing deepen.

After a long time has passed, Jinki’s voice floats up towards him. “Are you okay, Jonghyunnie?”

“Me?” This is coming out of nowhere, but that still doesn’t count as an answer, Jonghyun is pretty sure, so, “I’m fine.”

“Whenever you say that, that’s when I know you’re not,” Jinki replies. Jonghyun’s not sure what that’s supposed to mean, but he’s not planning on asking. Then, “You haven’t forgotten that thing, have you.”

Jonghyun knows exactly what that means, he doesn’t have to ask, and the next time he closes his eyes now, he’ll probably see that picture of his face staring back at him. But that’s just background noise. More of the same.

“There’s always something,” Jonghyun says, as quietly as he can. “I wish I could exist without hurting anyone else.”

Jinki takes some time with that.

“You can’t help that. And letting them hurt you doesn’t make it any better, you know.”

And suddenly Jonghyun wants out. He thinks about escaping to the couch, maybe watching television on mute. Instead he lies here and stares at the ceiling and struggles just to say, “Why are we talking about me right now?”

“Because everybody else is asleep. Manager Hyung, too, most likely,” Jinki says, reading his mind.

And now it’s Jonghyun’s turn to find an answer. There’s no way he’d just drift off, so if he doesn’t say anything, Jinki will know he’s ignoring him. He won’t shut up, then.

Somehow the only thing he can get out is, “I get it if you’re mad.” And then he can’t see Jinki’s face, and if he leans over his bed and takes a peek Jinki will catch him at it, and, “I couldn’t stop myself from thinking it was him. I was never going to say it out loud. Honestly.”

He’s so sure Taemin is asleep, but if Kibum or Minho are awake, if they heard how his voice sounded just now…Jonghyun rolls over and curls in on himself, hides his face in his pillow, but his skin crawls all the same as he waits. And waits and waits.

“It’s better that you did,” Jinki says at last. “I just didn’t want to hear it, is all.”

“Hyung.”

It just pops out of him.

“What?”

Jonghyun doesn’t know whether he should be saying sorry or thanks. He’s pretty sure Jinki’s not interested in either, though, and he kind of wants to be done with this forever. So instead he says, “I can give Taeminnie some of my lines.”

And when Jinki takes his time replying again, Jonghyun hopes he’s not only pretending to think it over. But then all he has for Jonghyun is, “Forget it. More singing means more time dancing up front and center,” and that’s so like him. Figures he was trying to find a way to make it into a joke. Figures he failed at it so badly.

Figures he got Jonghyun to smile anyway.

“Hyung.”

All that gets this time is a grunt. Jinki’s done with him. Jonghyun can shut up. He can be miserable all on his own. He doesn’t have to try so hard to think of the nicest way out, he doesn’t have to drag Jinki along with him.

“You should suffer for your fans, I do for mine.” Jinki is too tired to laugh, ask him when his abs will debut, make fun of him for crying on music shows, or anything. And somehow it’s so much harder to remember there are people out there who love him for no reason, too, but right now Jonghyun wants to try. “When is our next fan meeting?”

Jinki groans. “Ask in the morning.” Blanket rustling, mattress creaking, then, muffled, “If you still care.”

Whatever. “Hyung.” Jinki started this. “Hyung~”

The next thing Jonghyun knows a pillow hits his face, and when he can see again, Kibum’s up on his elbow, glaring at him from across the way.

“If you can’t sleep, either try harder or pretend, but do it with your mouth shut.”

All Jonghyun has to do is turn over, and try like hell not to think about how long Kibum could have kept his patience, how much he heard. But really, he’s waiting for Kibum to ask for his pillow back.

 

Jonghyun has worked out with “Sherlock” on repeat since the day he got his hands on it. Every night, just until it starts to get old. That’s starting to happen faster and faster. The song has grown on him enough now that his palms itch, listening to the guide, thinking about all the things he’s done to make his lines his own, the way it will sound when it’s colored in with their voices, instead of the too-perfect vocals they’ve been given as a starting point.

Tonight it only gets him through a few machines, before it stops taking him to a good place. So he changes it up, and listens to his demos instead. He doesn’t know how it would be if there were someone else listening, if that would ruin it for him too, but when he’s alone, they always help. With the five of them living on top of each other, and Manager Hyung always a room away, he has nowhere to talk to himself, but here.

Jonghyun got into this life because SM looked at him and liked what they saw, and even now, that’s all he has to show for himself. His face, his voice. Shinee, Shinee’s Jonghyun. But he stuck with it all this time for the Jonghyun in his headphones right now. The person he’s trying to be, the music he wants to make. The parts of himself he’s never been brave enough to bring into the open. The things he’s too scared to explain.

It shouldn’t be that hard. This song is about looking at the moon on his way home. The next one is about his wedding night. And the next has no lyrics, just nonsense to fill in the gaps. It isn’t about anything yet, he doesn’t even know if it’s supposed to be sad or happy. Someone else would be able to tell him how it sounds.

Someday. When his songs are good enough. When they can speak for themselves, and for him.

When he hits the showers he’s on his own again, and once he’s out, his phone is waiting. It buzzes to life in his pocket, but he lets it be until he’s in his car. Then he makes himself check.

Just Manager Hyung.

 _went out. if you forgot passcode text me,_ and then, thirty minutes later, _nvmnd. back now._ And sandwiched in between the two, _dont get the mail, ill take care of it._

He’s only saying that because it’s the end of the month. Jonghyun doesn’t think he’s stupid enough to misplace bills, but whatever. Manager Hyung has nothing to worry about. Since that last time, Jonghyun hasn’t gone near their mailbox.

And then, one from Taemin. Taemin never texts him. Jonghyun almost missed it just now, but it’s been waiting for him for an hour already.

_stop for milk or dont come back ^^_

 

Jonghyun cleans out the milk section at the first convenience store with parking nearby, some of every flavor, then lugs it all up to their dorm. He’s not expecting Taemin to wait up for him, knows he’ll be lucky to get a thank you in the morning, but Jonghyun’s still disappointed to find Manager Hyung alone. He’s sorting through their backlog of mail at the kitchen table, lost in an avalanche of paper.

Jonghyun has to stretch to find space enough to dump his spoils. Manager Hyung jumps, and Jonghyun doesn’t have time to feel guilty before Manager Hyung’s pulling his earbuds out, saying, “It’s past three. You know you have to get up at six tomorrow, right?” And before Jonghyun can point out that he’s up talking to Jonghyun right now, “You’re the first person I’ve met who’d choose exercise over sleep, you’re something else.”

Manager Hyung’s definitely not the first person Jonghyun has met who’d choose stuff that stresses him out instead, but that’s not the kind of thing anyone needs to hear, so he goes with something even more useless, “I got milk,” and resigns himself to lugging it over to the fridge next.

The minute he goes for the bag, leaning over the table, Manager Hyung freezes. Then he half-rises, hands scrabbling over envelopes, telling Jonghyun, “I vote the company keeps track of this shit at our new place, as long as they’re paying,” but Jonghyun follows his eyes, his hands, and.

There.

Manager Hyung almost slips it out of sight, but it’s too late. Suddenly Jonghyun is back in time, it’s that morning all over again. He pushes past Manager Hyung and snatches it up, and there it is. Again. Eyes blacked out with sharpie, face poked full of holes. Him.

“This is from today?”

He doesn’t know he’s said it until it’s out there, and his eyes are on Manager Hyung’s face, tight and anxious, waiting waiting waiting.

“What do you mean, is it from today?” Manager Hyung says, caught off guard. “I always get the mail, I always make sure. There’s no way you could have—”

His eyes narrow, and Manager Hyung knows. Somehow he knows. Which has to mean, “How long have I been getting these?” It comes to him so fast the words run together. He has to breathe, he has to get an answer. “How many?”

He’s not making sense, Manager Hyung’s face says so. He has to make sense, he has to make him understand. But then Manager Hyung opens his mouth, and he begins, “This is the third one—”

And everything inside Jonghyun stops.

“When were you planning on telling me?” he says. His voice isn’t his own. “And it’s not the third, it’s the fourth.”

For longer than Jonghyun can stand, so much longer, Manager Hyung just looks at him, and struggles with himself, and Jonghyun wants to tell him he can see everything, his eyes narrowing, mouth twisting, hands balling into fists. He wants to tell him to just get it over with.

And then Manager Hyung says, with forced, terrible calm, “I told the company after the first one. That was at the beginning of the month, and they’re still looking into it,” before he gets to the point. “What about you? You’re saying you opened one. You didn’t think maybe you should tell me about it?” he says. Manager Hyung’s not the one who should be this close to yelling right now, but Jonghyun’s not stopping him. He can go ahead. “It doesn’t matter if you don’t think I can help, that’s not up to you. I can’t do my fucking job if you don’t let me,” deep breath, “I get that you don’t always want me to, I get it, I don’t either.” Deep breath. “But if it’s something this serious, _I need to know.”_

And that’s so fucking unfair.

“You did know, you can’t talk either,” Jonghyun snaps. And, “If you hate your fucking job so much, then quit. No one’s stopping you.” Split second later, Manager Hyung’s face falls open, and Jonghyun is sorry, and he didn’t mean it like that, and, “I understand, too. If you’re tired of all this shit, it’s okay. We’ll be okay if you—”

“I don’t need you to understand me, I need you to listen to me,” Manager Hyung says, talking over him, and once he’s caught up to the other half, voice rising, “Nobody’s quitting, you’re stuck with me, so start fucking listening right now.”

“What’s going on?”

Jinki.

A few things happen at once. Manager Hyung takes the photo from Jonghyun, holds it up for all to see and says, “Did you know about these, too?” Jonghyun whips around, trying to head off whatever stupid thing is about to come out of Jinki’s mouth, and finds the other three there too, squinting in the light. They’re not even looking at him, they don’t even see him, they’re all staring at the photo. Taemin too.

Taemin.

“Just me,” Jinki says.

Manager Hyung barks out a laugh. _“Just_ you?” he says, but that’s as far as he gets, before Taemin comes to life, lurches forward, and snatches the photo out of his hand.

“What is this?”

And somehow Jonghyun finds his voice, just to say, “It’s nothing, Taeminnie,” and then he can move again, and he’s reaching for Taemin.

Taemin jerks away from him, “It’s not nothing, I’m not stupid,” and this time Jonghyun hangs on, takes ahold of his arm and draws him in, and he’s not sure if he’s trying to keep Taemin from looking at it or trying to make Taemin look at him, and, “This isn’t the first one? Jinki hyung just said, don’t try to lie to me.” Taemin wrenches away. Trips over himself and careens into Jinki, and he’s out of Jonghyun’s hands.

Minho and Kibum crowd him out, leaning in on either side of Taemin to get a closer look at the photo. And all Jonghyun can do is stand there and watch, and think, _it’s happening again._ And he thinks, _it’s so much worse this time._ This time there’s nowhere to hide, this time it’s real.

“This was in our mail?”

“If some creep found out where we live, did any of you ever think maybe you should let the rest of us know? For fuck’s sake.”

“It’s the same as the last one,” Jinki says, moving right along, peering over Taemin’s shoulder. “Same photo, same crap.”

Kibum glances over at Jonghyun. Finally, he exists. “Whoever sent this thing is boring. I’ve done worse. Give me a pen and I could do worse right now.”

“They didn’t have to draw on it, the photo is bad enough,” Minho says, piling on. He gives Jonghyun a smile, too, so gentle it tightens Jonghyun’s chest.

And now Kibum’s smiling, too, stiff and forced, saying, “It’s not the photo. It’s him,” and it’s like a switch has flipped, they’re both trying so hard, and Jonghyun’s not sure he can take it. “Look at his haircut, it’s tragic. Is this from before we debuted?”

Taemin doesn’t try. Taemin doesn’t say anything. Taemin won’t even look at him.

“Give me that, Taemin-ah.”

Taemin doesn’t put up a fight either when Manager Hyung goes to take the photo back. And Manager Hyung’s supposed to be in the middle of yelling at Jonghyun, but instead there’s a loud ripping sound, and before anyone can think, it’s in pieces on the floor.

“There,” Manager Hyung says, breathing hard, glaring around at them all. “Living room.” They go. “Now sit. All of you.”

They sit.

Jonghyun decides he’s had enough when a minute’s passed and Manager Hyung’s gone silent, done nothing but pace in front of them, back and forth, and all that’s left is to wait and see if he explodes or manages to swallow his temper this time, too. And in another minute, he decides to do something about it, and says, “I’m sorry, I should have told you.” 

The apology tastes like ash, but he feels better once it’s out of his body. Even if he’s not sure who it’s for. Manager Hyung, sinking down into the chair opposite, head in his hands. Kibum and Minho on the other end of the couch, one or the other checking on him every five seconds. Taemin, squished in between him and Jinki, staring at his knees, wringing his hands, soft and warm and deadly tense against his side.

It’s Manager Hyung who breaks the silence first. “You’re not scared, right, Jonghyun-ah?” And, in a hurry, like he’s not sure he should give Jonghyun the chance to answer just yet, “This isn’t stalking, or threats, or anything you need to worry about. It’s something the company can deal with. It’s just some anti.”

A couple minutes ago, Manager Hyung was telling him this is serious, but he doesn’t want to hear that again, anyway.

“I know,” Jonghyun says, not taking his eyes off Taemin.

“It’s too easy to get this address. Just hang in there for two more months, and we’re out of here,” Manager Hyung goes on. A minute ago his head was about to come off, but he’s already back to saying sorry for things that aren’t his fault.

Jonghyun gives that a shot himself, says, “I know,” again, and reaches for Taemin, gentle as he can, prying Taemin’s hands apart before he squeezes the life out of them. Taemin’s eyes snap up to his, clear and angry, and they’re telling Jonghyun if he doesn’t let go, stop toying with Taemin’s fingers, Taemin will just pull away from him, like he did before. Like he does now.

“Don’t bother acting cool, it’s annoying,” Kibum says. “If it bugs you, just say so.”

“I never said it didn’t,” Jonghyun replies, because he can’t not. They’re all waiting for him to talk, and he doesn’t think he can just tell them to shut up or mind their own business, that this moment is exactly why he kept it from them. So he gives in. Talks. “It’s worse if it makes things weird. Don’t make it into a thing, okay? Treat me normally. You guys have no right to get mad at me for not telling, if you don’t.”

Taemin doesn’t get the memo. Either that or he just doesn’t give a shit.

But somehow that’s it. Nobody gets up, and nobody says anything out loud. Jonghyun’s just going to stay right here for a while, just until he figures out how to get Taemin back to normal. Just until Taemin tries to get away from Jonghyun, and takes Jonghyun somewhere else. Until he smiles at Jonghyun again.

“Aren’t you going to ask me if there’s anything else?” Manager Hyung says, before Jonghyun can even find a place to begin.

And anyway, “What?”

“Anything I might be keeping from you guys,” Manager Hyung says, like it should be obvious.

“If they send me another one, just don’t hide it from me again. Okay, hyung?”

Jonghyun was just getting that out of the way, but Manager Hyung takes it to heart, nodding his head off, watching Jonghyun’s face to make sure he gets it. Then he finds words again, says in a rush, “I promise this is the first time anything like this has happened. I mean, there’s a lot worse that gets sent to SM, but this is the first time anyone’s sent anything bad here.”

Silence again. Jonghyun can feel eyes on his face, but he can’t really think of anything else right now, so he stares around at all of them, too, waits for one of them to deal with it. His nerves don’t jam up until after Minho’s already opened his mouth, and things from a thousand years ago come rushing back. _Then let’s just ask him._

But all Minho says is, “Do you want to quit?” and it’s okay, Jonghyun can breathe again.

And all Manager Hyung does is crinkle his face up, ask them, “Where is this coming from? First Jonghyunnie, and now you. Do you guys want to get rid of me or something?”

Kibum half laughs half coughs, making Taemin twitch, tense up even more. Jonghyun goes for his knee, but his fingertips brush the back of Jinki’s hand, somehow Jinki beat Jonghyun to it, and Taemin let him, too.

Minho does better than all of them, gives Manager Hyung the straightest answer any of them could. “Jinki hyung said you were having trouble renewing your contract.”

He ignores Jinki’s elbow in his side, his awkward laugh, and he doesn’t listen when Jinki tells him off, all for Manager Hyung’s benefit, “That’s private, Minho-yah.”

“Is there anything we can do? SM doesn’t pay us to do our own thinking, but we could give it a try. Tell them it’s you or nobody.”

And just like that, Manager Hyung smiles. It’s not the grin he plasters on his face when he’s supposed to be laughing at their inside jokes, the tight halfway smile he wears when he needs them to think he can fix whatever it is, the tired one when they’re all keyed up after a long day, and it’s taking all he’s got not to fall asleep at the wheel.

This one is real.

“If I tell you anything now, I get to ask about yours in two years,” is what Manager Hyung goes with, but really he’s saying, _I’m sticking around._

Kibum misses the point in his impatience. “We don’t care about the rest of it. Are you going to sign or not?” Then he catches up, bites his lip, says just as hastily, “It’s your life, hyung. Don’t be afraid to say no to them now if you think you might regret it later.”

And before he can stop himself, Jonghyun is adding, “You’re not like us. You get to quit,” and it’s supposed to be funny, but he ends up meaning it, and saying too much.

Manager Hyung laughs anyway.

And then, just when Jonghyun was starting to think they were safe.

“What about those rumors about us, do you have anything to say about them?”

Jinki of all people. He’s trying so hard to sound like he doesn’t care, and it’s so obvious Jonghyun kind of wants to kill him. But everything Jinki says comes out weird, and if anyone could get away with asking…Jonghyun works himself up to looking Manager Hyung in the face.

And just like that, for the first time in weeks, he forgets about it. Whether Jonghyun was wrong or right about him, it doesn’t matter, and maybe it never did. However Manager Hyung felt in the past, whatever he said about them, all they have is right now, and right now, Manager Hyung can meet Jonghyun’s eyes, no problem. He looks the same as he did a minute ago, like none of this has hit him at all, like Jonghyun is going through it alone. He looks normal.

And he sounds so normal, so fucking normal, when he says, “SM thought it was best for you guys to ignore them. I thought you were okay with that? If you want to issue denials, you can’t wait two weeks to ask. Bringing it up again now would do more harm than good.”

Jonghyun is the weird one. He’ll take it. He’s so happy that way it’s crazy.

Jinki’s not done yet, though. “Do you ever complain about us to people?” he presses. “Be honest, hyung. It’s okay. We give you a lot to complain about.”

“Back when I had someone to complain to, sure. I’ve been single for three years,” Manager Hyung says easily enough. “That was before I really got to know you. Now I keep thinking it’d be nice to have someone to tell the good things to. Remind myself, too.” Manager Hyung hesitates, like he’s not sure he should say this next thing. But he doesn’t make Jonghyun wait, doesn’t let his heart climb into his throat again, before he comes out with it. “About the rumors. The fansites probably pulled some info on the person who started them. There’s no way the company will take action at this point, but if you guys think it’d help you to know…” Which means there’s no point talking about it anymore now, but still, Manager Hyung can’t let it go. Not until he’s sure they have. “Next time, just tell me sooner.”

“Next time,” Jonghyun says.

Manager Hyung smiles at Jonghyun, that same one from before, only a little slower, a little smaller. The moment is passing.

“Next time,” Manager Hyung agrees.

 

After all that, Jonghyun can’t sleep. He’s not sure how long he tries. He’s not sure he’s tried at all. When he comes to hate their bedroom ceiling, he gets up and stares at the photo instead. Upending the waste paper basket onto the tabletop is easy, and all it takes to find the pieces and put them back together is time.

Looking at it with new eyes is a little harder, and seeing himself instead of what’s been done to him, a little harder still. But Kibum was right. If he had to guess, he’d say he was sixteen when this was taken, maybe seventeen. He hadn’t pierced his ears or dyed his hair yet. He’d never worn make up except on Halloween. The only people who ever took photos of him were people who knew him, and these days you could probably find this one online, image searching his name.

And now it’s found Jonghyun.

He doesn’t throw the pieces away again. It does him no worse to stick them in the oldest notebook he has, filled front to back with a whole lot of other things he’d rather go blind than look at. Horrifying would-be lyrics, ex-girlfriends’ names scribbled in the margins, journal entries listing all his old reasons for hating himself, stuff he’s probably better off not remembering. Same as everything else, the photo will be there if he needs it.

He likes the ceiling better the second time around.

 

The next few days pass, same as ever, and the thirty-first rolls around, same as it always does. Jonghyun doesn’t bother with New Year’s Eve. He can’t drink, and he’s always either working or single, or both like today, so he hasn’t had anyone to kiss in forever. The new year will catch up to Jonghyun in another month, when Kibum tries to drown them all in rice cake soup and his mom tries really hard not to guilt him into coming home.

The more important thing is that today is the last chance they have to practice “Sherlock” before they go in to record it on Monday. The vocal instructor had no more notes for any of them in their last session, and they’ve practiced the song to death, together and apart, but SM’s only giving them one day with it in the studio. It has to be perfect.

They get to work while it’s still dark and leave long after the sun’s set. It’s eleven by the time they get back to the dorm. Jonghyun thinks he’ll skip the gym, just go to bed, right up until Minho catches him on his way to shower and shoves him towards the door instead.

And now here they are, snack section of the convenience store down the street. Manager Hyung stayed behind to wait for the chicken to arrive, and because he never comes along anywhere he doesn’t have to take them in the van. It’s always easier for him to turn a blind eye when he’s not there to stop them, but this time that’s backfiring pretty epically. Kibum thinks he knows all their favorites better than they do, and for once he’s not shaming them with nutrition facts, or scouring the store for the least unhealthy options available. If he finds something one of them is supposed to like, it goes in the basket. Manager Hyung’s the only one who’s not here to tell him no.

It’s no fun, since nobody’s taking advantage. Jinki is a couple aisles over, stocking up on alcohol, and Taemin doesn’t want anything, not from Kibum now, and not from Jonghyun, ever. He’s been off all week. Last Jonghyun checked, it was his photo and not Taemin’s, and he already said he was sorry, and he’s pretty sure he shouldn’t have to be, when Taemin never tells him _anything,_ but he can’t take much more of this. Jonghyun is going crazy. Taemin is making him crazy.

He tries everything. The direct approach does no good. Taemin just plays dumb when Jonghyun goes over Kibum’s head and brings Taemin all kinds of things he used to buy for him. Seven years of feeding Taemin, and all that gets him now is Taemin looking at him like _whatever,_ so Jonghyun plays dumber. Gets obvious.

“Do you want banana milk?” he says loudly. Jinki ended up drinking all the milk Jonghyun bought that night, but right now he’s all the way over there. “Minho?”

“Looks like there are only two left,” Minho says without missing a beat, staring right at Taemin. “That’s one for each of us.”

Taemin doesn’t even get annoyed.

Jonghyun has to fix that. “Do you think Jinki hyung will get enough soju, should I check on him? Suddenly I feel like drinking something harder~”

“You’re the last person who needs to worry about that, hyung,” Minho says, because he’d rather make fun of Jonghyun than help him with Taemin. “With you it’s one bottle KO.”

And then Kibum steps in where Taemin is supposed to, warns him, “Don’t even think about it. You’ll end up crying all night like last time,” and it’s so much worse coming from him, because Jonghyun doesn’t want to hear it. He doesn’t even need to, he didn’t even mean it.

By the time they regroup, all of fifteen minutes later, Jonghyun is climbing the walls. All the same, the clerk takes her time ringing them up, carding Jinki and sorting through two baskets of junk. Somewhere in there Jonghyun starts to feel sorry for her, starts to convince himself she’s probably the one person guaranteed to have a shittier, lonelier night than him. Coming and going there’ll be happy drunks scavenging for food, sad drunks cleaning out the liquor section, lucky drunks asking where the condoms are, and she’ll have to deal with them all sober. All Jonghyun has to deal with is Taemin’s silence, and all he has to do is wait for him to forget he’s upset. In the meantime Taemin’s as cute as ever.

The other three just think they are.

“Are you growing your hair out?” Kibum asks the clerk.

In all the time she’s worked here, Jonghyun’s never heard her say anything she doesn’t have to, and she doesn’t start now. Just shakes her head and keeps going, combing her bangs back when they fall in her eyes, get in the way.

“You’d look like Kim Taehee with it long,” Minho tells her.

Jinki smiles. “Who does she look like now? Lee Taemin~?”

He doesn’t even have an excuse for acting like an idiot, he’s not even drunk yet, but he’s never let that stop him before. The clerk doesn't react, probably because she doesn't even know who that is, or that he's standing right in front of her, shooting Jinki a look. Jonghyun only catches Taemin at it because he does the same, and then he’s stuck trying to make it better.

“I like short hair. It’s pretty, it suits you,” he says. He’s not lying, but she ignores him. Taemin, though. He snorts, turns on Jonghyun, and that’s a reaction. That’s something.

“It doesn’t mean anything when you say it, hyung,” Taemin says, and that’s a little more. “Is there anything you don’t like?”

Jonghyun doesn’t waste time thinking, just pinches Taemin’s cheeks until his mouth curves into an unwilling smile and his hands come up to tug at Jonghyun’s wrists, and finally his eyes meet Jonghyun’s. Makes sure he doesn’t miss anything when Jonghyun says, “You’re lucky I like you.”

Reading Taemin’s face, watching for his smile, he thinks that’s it, he’s won. Then Taemin kicks him in the shin. Jonghyun lifts his head through the pain and the others’ laughter, just in time to catch the door swinging shut behind him.

 

It’s no better when they get back. Jinki opens his first beer and gets a head start before they even settle on a movie, and then they don’t settle on a movie, end up watching whatever’s on TV. Kibum makes fun of everything Minho suggests, and Minho gets his revenge later, when he corners Kibum, claps a hand over his mouth, muffling his protests, and seals it with a fake kiss.

“I hope it’s not this bad when you do it for real. Your breath stinks and your technique sucks,” Kibum snaps, as soon as he has the breath.

Minho doesn’t take the bait. Just plays along, huffs, “Hey, I learned from Han Jihye sunbae. I think I know what I’m doing.”

His Jihye was a Kim, so the name doesn’t really hit Jonghyun until it gets Taemin to look at him, and it’s too late for him to react. Kibum’s already going on, “Aigoo, that’s your problem right there. She shouldn’t be teaching anyone anything,” and instead of defending her acting skills, Minho swoops in again.

This is the kind of game Minho likes to play in public, in broad daylight, no alcohol in his system, so Jonghyun’s prepared when Minho tries it on him next, bowling him over into the couch cushions. He thinks about kneeing Minho in the balls, but it works just as well to lick his palm. Grossing Minho out doesn’t get Taemin to laugh the way it usually would, though. Jinki was letting him steal some of his beer, and now that he’s moved on to soju, Taemin has too. Jonghyun can’t tell him to slow down, because Jinki already did, and there’s no point keeping an eye on him, because Manager Hyung already is.

Eventually Jonghyun’s had enough. The bathroom buys him five, ten minutes alone, just him and his phone, before Jinki pounds on the door and Jonghyun has to get out. The next step is to go to bed, but as he passes the kitchen, out of the corner of his eye, he sees them.

Taemin, up against the wall, face turned up to Minho’s, hanging onto him for dear life, hands fisted in his shirt. Minho, leaning into Taemin, pressing in close, holding his face.

Like they’re kissing.

It’s not funny. As soon as Jonghyun can move, he does. Next thing he knows, he’s back where he started. The people on screen keep talking, the others too, and Jonghyun can’t keep up, and he doesn’t know what the fuck is happening. He has to take his own body back somehow, numb and buzzing, blood rushing.

“I’m going to bed,” Manager Hyung says, hand heavy on Jonghyun’s shoulder as he gets up. “Cut Taeminnie off soon, okay?”

Taemin comes back alone and reclaims his spot on the floor, just him and Jinki’s soju. Kibum saves Jonghyun from having to do anything, digs his toes into Taemin’s back and says, “Leave it for Jinki hyung, he’s going to need it,” and Jinki provides punctuation from the hallway with a thud.

Taemin frowns at him. “Minho got me, too.”

“If you hated it so much, why didn’t you tell him that?”

Taemin’s eyes shoot to his face, and somehow that came out of Jonghyun’s mouth. He needs to shut up.

He bites his tongue so hard he tastes blood. Taemin sulks until Jinki and Minho come back, and Jinki cracks open the next bottle. Jonghyun keeps his eyes on the TV, sees nothing, hears nothing, and tells himself over and over to go to bed. So what if he won’t be able to sleep. So what if it means leaving Taemin out here. So what if Taemin is drunk and getting drunker. When he can’t keep his head up he lays it on Jinki’s shoulder, and when Kibum says, “That’s enough, Taeminnie. You too, hyung,” Taemin twists around to give him a smile, and ends up on sprawled on the floor, low cry wrenched out of him.

Jonghyun is there before Jinki can get up. Taemin doesn’t fight him when Jonghyun hauls him to his feet, but he doesn’t help, either, swaying into him and letting Jonghyun take all his weight. Their bedroom is right there, and then Jinki’s bed is too. He thinks about pushing Taemin onto it and leaving him to figure out the rest, but instead he lays him down, gently as he can. From there it’s nothing to roll him over and over onto his own bed, arm getting trapped beneath Taemin’s body.

Taemin makes this face like he’s about to burst, eyes squeezed shut and mouth tight, and for one horrible moment Jonghyun is sure he’s about to get a faceful of vomit. Instead Taemin takes a peek, like he’s checking if it’s safe to open his eyes. He forgets himself when he sees who it is.

“Jonghyun hyung.”

Taemin smiles at him, so bright he leaves Jonghyun dizzy, and by the time Jonghyun realizes he’s staring, he’s too far gone. Taemin’s always pretty, but up close like this, it’s as though Jonghyun is seeing him for the first time. He thinks he’s waiting for the little details to add up into the Taemin he knows, and then he forgets how to think. Long after Taemin’s smile fades, he lies there and lets Jonghyun look and does nothing to stop him. Dark eyes staring up at him. Fan of his eyelashes, fall of his hair, curve of his cheek. His lips, full and pink and soft.

All of the sudden, Taemin reaches for him, hand petting clumsily over his face, almost poking his eye out, and when Jonghyun can see again, Taemin’s right where he left him. Nothing’s changed. He’s solid and warm, putting Jonghyun’s arm to sleep, and his smile is the same one he gives Jonghyun every day, and he’s only Taemin. And if Jonghyun could take this moment, take whatever he wanted, forget everything before and after, he knows what he would do to him.

He pulls away instead of leaning in, and Taemin’s eyes follow him. Seconds pass. Jonghyun wants to go back so badly he can taste it.

He wants to kiss Taemin, so badly.

Finally, suddenly, out of nowhere, it hits Jonghyun, and doesn’t leave his body no matter what, even when he’s climbed up to his own bed, and all he has left of Taemin is the sound of his breathing. Hot all over, face burning, chest tight, heart racing. With each new breath he wants it more. Taemin’s lips pressed to his, Taemin’s taste on his tongue, his name in Taemin’s mouth, everything. Anything, if it’s Taemin.

_Taemin._

Jonghyun has lost his mind.


	2. Chapter 2

“Didn’t you say short is better, Jonghyunnie?”

Jonghyun can’t think of an answer that won’t sound weird.

Kibum doesn’t wait for him, just throws Jinki a look he ignores from the safety of the shotgun seat, and twists around to tell Taemin, “Long hair suits you, Lucifer was your best era.”

Taemin takes his time replying, cheeks bulging, tray of kimbap laid out on the seat between him and Jonghyun. They just escaped from a long meeting about their new concept, in which the reps from Creative threw the word “trend” around a lot, the reps from Marketing the word “brand,” and everybody got to practice their English, until the coordi noonas showed them sketches that made even less sense. The important thing is it’s over, they survived, they get to eat, they’re thirty minutes from the next schedule. They’re also months away from having to worry about any of it, besides Taemin.

Finally Taemin swallows. He already chugged his own water bottle to settle his nerves, so Jonghyun passes him his. Their fingers brush, Taemin takes a long pull, passes it back, the end. Except Jonghyun’s hand is tingling. He has to cut his eyes away from the line of Taemin’s neck. When he gets it back, when he drinks from it, the first thing in his head is _indirect kiss._

Crazy. Crazy, crazy.

It’s just him. Taemin’s saying to Kibum, “If I don’t want to grow it out, they told me I could wear extensions,” like nothing’s happened, everything is normal.

“And you’re not into that either? You can take the extensions out at night, though?”

If Kibum’s trying to get Taemin to think about it, he’s a long way off. Taemin just makes a face, and says, “You guys don’t know what it’s like, the coordi noonas never play dress up with you. Even when you were my age, they didn’t.”

It’s nobody’s fault but Taemin’s own that he’s so cute. That’s not the kind of thing Taemin needs to hear, though, and a week after New Year’s, things are still fragile between them. So Jonghyun plays it safe, takes him seriously the first time.

“They asked you, Taeminnie. You can tell them no.”

Taemin turns to him. “What would you say if it were you?”

It never would be him, because Jonghyun is never going to have Taemin’s face. Taemin’s never going to look like Jonghyun, either, and on most days Jonghyun is sure Taemin is happy that way. He should be more than happy, but just because Taemin knows how pretty he is, doesn’t mean he has to like it. Jonghyun can’t make him, either, can’t make him see himself the way Jonghyun sees him.

A week ago he would have told Taemin as much, but now the thought of saying any of that out loud has his heart hammering out of his chest. Jonghyun keeps his mouth shut and makes himself useful other ways, picking rice off Taemin’s cheek, the corner of his mouth. It’s a mistake. He just doesn’t know it until his thumb follows his eyes, pressing into Taemin’s lips, and it’s like he’s been electrocuted.

“It won’t hurt to give extensions a try, Taeminnie,” Manager Hyung says from a million miles away, smiling at him in the rear view mirror. “If you don’t like them, I’ll try talking to them for you.”

Taemin’s eyes keep finding Jonghyun, like he’s waiting for an answer, even after Jonghyun’s let Taemin turn back to his kimbap, taken his hand away and trapped it under his thigh. Jonghyun only catches him at it because he hasn’t stopped himself from staring. One thing at a time.

“If you’re asking, that means you don’t hate it. Manager Hyung is right, you might as well try.” He can shut up, but Taemin doesn’t look away, and now his stomach is fluttering, and the craziest thing is how much he wants more of this feeling. How it’s never enough, even when it fills him to bursting, and it’s too much to keep inside. “And anyway, you’re asking the wrong person. Whatever the coordi noonas do to you, you’ll always look cute to me.”

Taemin doesn’t think anything of that. He has no time, because Minho snorts, turns in his seat to give Jonghyun a look. “Isn’t that just a long way of saying you don’t care?”

Jonghyun should be relieved Minho ruined it. He should laugh, find some way to turn this around, gang up on Minho with Kibum, until they get to wherever they’re going and Jonghyun has to think about other things.

“I want to see, Taeminnie. Try for me.”

Too far.

Jonghyun can only breathe again once he’s had a minute or two with his cheek plastered to his window, like ice against his burning skin. The others have long since moved on to other things. Jonghyun’s just hanging on until he hears Taemin’s voice too, and then he’ll look again. In the meantime he’s just going to sit tight and stuff himself and wait for his body to make sense.

“Why are they wasting our time with this stuff now, anyway?” Minho is saying. “We could have had practice this morning.”

“If you guys want to fit one in tonight, I don’t mind working late,” Manager Hyung says. “You’re free after seven.”

No one takes him up on it. Jonghyun knows that’s only because Taemin’s not listening, the way he never does, or his mouth is too full to form words.

“How long do you think SM’s been sitting on ‘Sherlock?’ Tony Testa worked with Michael Jackson, there’s no way he’d drop everything to choreograph our stuff,” Kibum says after a while. “I don’t get why we’re the last to hear about everything.”

They recorded “Sherlock” on the third, and by the fifth, they moved on from singing to dancing. Normally the transition takes time, and lots of it, even when the company hires someone in-house. But then, the year they all spent in Japan, SM might have spent planning for this comeback. After four years at the company, Jonghyun’s learned to think of his future as the next few months, and then the next few, and the next few, because it’s too easy for the people that run his life to stay ahead of him. It’s too hard for him to catch up.

“Aren’t you worried about the wrong thing?” Jinki says. “I might die during practice, you guys might have to go on without me.”

“It’s not that bad, hyung. ‘Lucifer’ was worse, and you did fine,” Minho says.

Jinki half laughs, half groans. “I was in better shape, though. I got old.”

“And fat.” Kibum’s seat creaks as he leans forward to poke Jinki in the stomach, and when he goes on, Jonghyun can hear his smile. “If we can pull it off the music shows won’t know what hit them. Right, Taeminnie?”

No reply. Suddenly his hand lands on Jonghyun’s, where they’ve both gone in blind for the kimbap. Jonghyun forgets himself and looks, and it’s like he’s caught Taemin out, frozen him up. Or something. Or nothing. If Jonghyun knew how to get out of his own head, stop making everything weird all on his own...

Kibum tries again. “Taeminnie?”

Yeah. Taemin gets unstuck, takes his hand away, and Jonghyun’s alone.

“What?”

“Jinki hyung thinks the company is trying to kill us. They hired Tony Testa to finish us off,” Minho tells Taemin, surprising a laugh out of him.

Jonghyun gets twisted up in the smile on Taemin’s face, open and happy like he hasn’t been in weeks, and takes his chance. Trying not to sound as careful as he feels, he piles on, says, “They’re probably sending me the photos, too.”

Everyone else does their part and laughs, even Manager Hyung. It’s taken a lot out of him, putting himself out there, turning this whole situation into a joke instead of a thing, but he can’t quit trying and he can’t forget about it until the day Taemin laughs it off, too. There hasn’t been another photo since the one that gave him away, but his days end and begin when they get home and Manager Hyung gets their mail, and he gets to see if today is the day the next one comes. The wait eats up his sleep, so his nights are endless, just him and Taemin’s murmurs and sighs and snores.

And in this moment, it’s just him and Taemin’s smile, painful, fading, but there. And now, him and Taemin’s words, “You’re less funny than Jinki hyung,” and then Taemin’s fingertips against his lips, pressing kimbap into his mouth, shutting him up.

Jonghyun will take that much. He’s happy to. More than happy. Too happy.

Jonghyun just concentrates on chewing. It’s too much to keep the smile off his face. 

 

A day later he thinks it’s too much to exist, if it involves keeping his eyes open for another five minutes.

“Do you remember what I said? That night.”

Which, how is Jonghyun supposed to know what Manager Hyung is talking about. He isn’t in the mood to guess, either. Not after spending tonight at MBC instead of the gym, filling in for Shindong hyung on Simsimtapa. And not right now, waiting for Kibum to get out of the bathroom and praying he doesn’t run into anyone on his way out of the building, so they can go the fuck home already.

Manager Hyung doesn’t make him. He glances around, but there’s no one out here in the cold but them, so there’s nothing to stop him from saying, “The photo before New Year’s. The last one.”

Oh.

“I’d rather not,” Jonghyun says, even less in the mood for whatever’s coming next. But Manager Hyung’s face is telling Jonghyun he might waste even more time saying sorry first, and he really can’t take that. “We said a lot of things, hyung. Be specific.”

Manager Hyung swallows his hesitation. “That I could look into who spread the rumors, that the fansites would have something on them.”

Whatever Jonghyun was expecting to hear, that wasn’t it.

“You’re the one who said it was too late to do anything about it, and that was a week ago.” And now Manager Hyung is bringing it up again himself, which probably means he followed up on it. Even though, “No one asked you to.” Or at least, “If they did, it wasn’t me. I’m fine not knowing, you can skip telling me about it.”

“I did it on my own, I didn’t feel right leaving it, it doesn’t matter,” Manager Hyung says, all very fast, but he’s not making excuses, he’s just getting that out of the way. Before Jonghyun can even think, Manager Hyung starts over, says in a voice spiked with nerves, “I have something to show you,” and goes for his phone.

It takes all of two seconds before he has it up for Jonghyun, and then it’s in his face and he has no idea what he’s supposed to be seeing. He doesn’t want to read Manager Hyung’s email and he doesn’t want to blow up the screenshot at the bottom. He doesn’t want to care. 

“What is this?” He glances at Manager Hyung instead of looking closer, doesn’t get much further than the expression on his face before his nerves take over and do the talking. “I really don’t want to know who did it, hyung. If you have to tell me, do it so I can understand. Whatever you say, I won’t get mad.”

“We don’t know much, this is just a profile page. Just look, Jonghyunnie,” Manager Hyung says, leaning in to take the phone from him, and zooming in. Jonghyun looks. It’s nothing new, not worth it, until Manager Hyung’s pudgy finger drags his eyes across the screen, “There.” And maybe his world stops, but Manager Hyung doesn’t know get the memo, because he goes on without him, says, “It’s the same one they keep sending you. It’s the same photo.”

He’s talking about the avatar. And he’s right, the face this person put on the rumors is the exact same one he’s seen blinded by sharpie and stabbed with a pencil over and over again. The only difference is the Jonghyun here has eyes that can look back into his, blurry and pixelly but untouched. And this should be so important, it should probably be scaring the shit out of him right now, but Jonghyun doesn’t feel a thing.

He can’t get past the username.

Jihye89.

“Did they get anything else?” Manager Hyung opens his mouth to reply, and suddenly Jonghyun is so sure he’s going to repeat himself, maybe try to say some of the right things, and Jonghyun’s never wanted to hear it less. “I know, hyung. Just, answer me, okay? Then we can talk about it.”

“Just the IP address,” Manager Hyung says, way too easily. Way too gently. “That’s as far as they could get. It belongs to a university, so it could have been hundreds of people. Thousands.”

“Which one?”

“How is that important? Jonghyun-ah, I’m showing you first, but I have to take this to SM. They checked with the fansites when it first happened, I don’t know how they could have missed this. The rumors, the photos, they could be connected, it could all be the same person.”

Manager Hyung is a million miles ahead of him, but Jonghyun can’t keep up. He doesn’t try at all.

“Which university?”

Manager Hyung frowns at Jonghyun, and if he makes Jonghyun wait Jonghyun doesn’t know what he’ll do. But in the end Manager Hyung realizes it’s quicker for him to give in, and says, “One of the SKY schools. Not Seoul…Yonsei?”

Jihye was born in 1989. She’s a student there now. He was in love with her when that photo was taken.

He’s the one who should hate her.

 

Kibum can tell something’s wrong right away, but there’s no way Jonghyun is going to admit it to him, and Manager Hyung can only fill him in on half. Jonghyun leaves them to it, not even sure he can talk, the way he’s feeling. Outside his window, Seoul rushes by, so beautiful his heart hurts, and he almost wishes he could touch it. He wishes he didn’t know where he’s headed.

“If it is the same person, how come I’m not getting photos? The rumors were about all of us.” Kibum glances at Jonghyun, tries a smile on him. “Antis shouldn’t play favorites. What does Jonghyun hyung have that I don’t?”

Nothing.

Kibum has a string of ex-boyfriends behind him, but he always feels the breakups coming before they hit him, and ends things before they get bad. He never hangs on afterwards, either. He never gets his heart broken. If someone laughed at him and played with him and left him for another guy, he’d let go and never look back, throw the good things out with the bad. He wouldn’t have to live with it like Jonghyun has, he wouldn’t have this bitter taste in his mouth now, years and years later.

“We don’t know anything for sure, Kibum-ah,” Manager Hyung says, glancing at Jonghyun.

“Ah whatever. Who cares if it makes sense, since it’s a crazy person doing it.” Kibum nudges Jonghyun’s foot with his own. “I’m so fucking bored of talking about this.”

Jonghyun wants out. In the meantime it’s easier to give Kibum what he wants, and smile. And maybe Kibum doesn’t buy it, but he knows better than to push.

When they get home, the dorm is dark and everyone else is in bed. Usually Jonghyun would be coming back from the gym right now, but it’s not too late for him to go. The door is right there. He doesn’t even have to take his coat and shoes off. He can go.

Instead he comes inside. For once it’s easy not to eat. He brushes his teeth, stands over the sink and stares into the mirror, and the person who stares back at him is a stranger, dead-eyed and foaming at the mouth. Nothing changes when he spits. He doesn’t bother with is contacts, doesn’t bother with the shower.

His bed is worse. He’s dreamed of her here, but only a few times, and he never asked to. He hasn’t fallen asleep thinking of her since before their debut. She broke up with him the year he dropped out of high school and put everything he had into music, when he was still nowhere. Sometimes he’s wondered what she thinks when she sees him now, if he looks cool on TV, if he looks handsome in magazines, if he sounds sweet on the radio. And sometimes he’s wondered about her. If she’s grown her hair out, if she’s learned to drink, if she ever thinks of him when it rains.

Stupid shit like that.

He should have gone to the gym after all. He needs to get out of his head.

He needs to get out of here.

He’s just shrugged into his coat when Taemin comes stumbling out of the bedroom, feeling his way to the bathroom. Somehow Taemin’s eyes find him in the dark.

“It’s only two,” Jonghyun says when Taemin comes up to him. “Go back to bed, go on.”

Jonghyun takes hold of Taemin’s shoulders, but Taemin won’t let him turn him around, waking up enough to frown at him and say, “What about you, where are you going?”

“For a walk.”

Taemin decides he is too, and there’s no stopping him, so Jonghyun waits while he pees, then helps him throw as many layers over his pajamas as he can, and leads him out into the night. He doesn’t know where they’re going, but Taemin is okay with that, silent at his shoulder, so pretty in the moonlight. It’s dark enough that Taemin trips on the cracks in the sidewalks and keeps his head down, watching his feet. Dark enough that Jonghyun can take Taemin’s hand without making things weird. It’s so small and warm in his, and somehow that just makes the winter and the night feel colder, and now Jonghyun’s throat is closing up, and his heart is hurting.

He makes it as far as the park a couple blocks from their dorm. There’s no one crazy enough to be out here but them. Jonghyun takes Taemin past the exercise equipment, under the trees, finds the nearest bench and throws himself onto it. Taemin sits down next to him, and he only lets Jonghyun go to stuff his own hand into his pocket, but it makes Jonghyun lonely.

It makes him talk.

Taemin has nothing to do but listen. He’s never very good at that, but Jonghyun doesn’t care. Taemin never makes him explain himself, either, and out of the shadows, under the yellow street light, Jonghyun can read his own words in Taemin’s face. He doesn’t have to ask to see how badly Taemin takes what he has to say this time.

And Taemin lasts half a second before he comes out with it. “There’re probably a million Jihyes born in 89, hyung,” and, voice all twisted up with the things he won’t say, “Why would she hate you anyway? What did you ever do to _her?”_

A lot of things. He was selfish. He was jealous. He never made time for her, never asked what she wanted. He only ever knew his own feelings, even when hers began to change. To the end, he could never hide the bad things from her. He lost his temper, he cried, he begged, he said and did all kinds of things he wishes he couldn’t remember now, now that they’re crawling under his skin.

Taemin’s looking at him like normal, like he doesn’t see any of that.

“I’m not the easiest person to love,” Jonghyun says. His voice comes out wrong, and it’s worse when he tries to laugh, because what if Taemin hates hearing it.

“The only person who has a hard time with that is you.” The words come so fast Taemin trips over them, like he had to say that much, make Jonghyun listen. And then he tries again, gets as far as, “Hyung,” and Jonghyun has to sit through it while he gets unstuck. He spends the wait on the turn of Taemin’s cheek, trying to catch his eye. “I can’t stop you from hating yourself, but don’t act like everybody else does.” Taemin digs his sneaker into the frost at his feet. “I don’t.”

Jonghyun strokes Taemin’s hair back from his face. “I know, Taeminnie.”

“I like you,” Taemin goes on, like Jonghyun didn’t say anything. “I’ll just like you enough for both of us, if that’s how you’re going to be.”

Out of nowhere, with everything gone wrong inside him, Jonghyun is this close to smiling like crazy. Out of nowhere he’d give anything to kiss Taemin. He doesn’t know if it’d be too much to ask Taemin to say he loves him, or if that’s just him, because the thought alone has his heart beating out his chest.

He has to do something about it. So he does, pinches Taemin’s cheek and says as stupidly as he can, “Aigoo, thank you,” and ruins things for himself.

They sit for a while.

“I don’t get what you’re trying to say. Do you think she spread the rumors? And she’s sending you the photos, too?” Taemin says at last. Either that or someone is fucking with Jonghyun, someone who knows him well enough to know about her. That’s as much as Jonghyun’s thought about it, that’s as far as he got before he tried everything he could to not think. “Manager Hyung makes more sense. You broke up back when we were trainees, and all that stuff happened after we debuted.”

“How come you’re back on that all of the sudden? That makes no sense at all.”

Taemin barely lets him finish before he’s saying, “I meant someone he talked to. Like you said before.”

“You didn’t want to hear it, though?”

Taemin should know that better than him, he’s the one who blamed Jonghyun for thinking as much out loud. And Jonghyun doesn’t know why Taemin is trying so hard to fight with him now. Jonghyun just told him the facts, and that’s all.

“You don’t want to hear it now,” Taemin retorts. “You’re not the only one in the universe with an ex-girlfriend, hyung. Manager Hyung said he has one too, he said he told her stuff about us.”

“And…what? His job was too much, she told him it was her or us? We stole him from her, or something? This is all revenge, she just hates my face the most?” Jonghyun can’t help laughing, but it doesn’t clear him out, doesn’t do him any good. And then Taemin’s eyes snap up to his face, narrow and angry, stealing his breath and shutting him up. Jonghyun doesn’t even get where he’s going wrong, because it’s not about Taemin. “I don’t think Manager Hyung would date someone that crazy, Taeminnie, I think he’d know better. And people don’t break up for reasons that stupid, and if they did, there’s no way they could hold onto it this long. Life gets in the way.”

For the longest time Taemin has nothing to say to that. Then, finally, to his knees, “You still remember Kim Jihye and it’s been even longer.” He looks up finally, and meets Jonghyun’s eyes, gives him a smile that just hurts them both. “And you’d rather think she hates you than she forgot about you.”

“It’s not like that, Taeminnie,” Jonghyun says quickly, sooner than he should, and then he’s left sitting here and wondering who he’s lying to, himself or Taemin.

Taemin doesn’t wait for him to figure it out, huffing impatiently. “Then what is it like?”

“I mean, what else am I supposed to think? If it’s about me, then it’s about her.”

It just shoots out of him, and it’s too late to take it back. Suddenly Taemin likes the moon better than Jonghyun, the near dark, too. He won’t look at him, he doesn’t care how crazy he makes Jonghyun. And everything he can think to say to Taemin, Taemin doesn’t need to hear. That whatever’s left of Jihye inside him, it’s not love, it’s not regret. That it’s not that he can’t forget her, he can’t forget himself, all his firsts, the parts of him she’ll always have, the man he tried to be to her, the fool she made him into. That he’d let go of everything she touched in a second if he could, if he thought it would make Taemin smile at him right now.

It’s crazy, how selfish he’s being. Crazy, how crazy.

And then Taemin starts up again. “Even if he wasn’t around, Manager Hyung’s probably heard of her. You still talk about her.”

Jonghyun doesn’t give himself time to stop, think better of telling Taemin, “Only to you,” and he really should have, for his own sanity. It’s so hard to take it when his heart flutters and his stomach opens up. He has to sit on his hands, he wants so badly to turn Taemin’s chin towards him, hold his face, make him see. What, he doesn’t know. “Only when she comes up.”

“She never comes up, hyung. You bring her up.”

Jonghyun can’t take much more of this.

“What are you getting mad at me for?”

“Because you’re so stupid!” Taemin bursts out, eyes ablaze. “You fall for looks first, and then you don’t care what they’re like, if they use you, if they even like you. You just like them more.” He only stops for air. Jonghyun fights to keep up, face burning up in the cold, mouth dry, whole body gone numb. There’s nothing he can do about it when Taemin finds the breath to tell him, “She cheated on you and she dumped you, and you don’t even hate her. If you saw her now you’d probably take her back.”

So Jonghyun doesn’t do anything. He can’t take back everything he was thinking and feeling a few minutes ago, trying to catch Taemin’s eye, when he’s sick with humiliation and he’s still thinking and feeling all the same things now. Taemin’s broken him down and turned him inside out, and all he can say is, “That’s how you think of me?” He doesn’t want an answer. He wants to hate Taemin. He can’t. “I never told you. Where did you hear that, who told you?”

Taemin’s face doesn’t change, he doesn’t act caught out, or wrong, or sorry, or any of the things he should. He just says, “It was all over the training program, there’s nobody who didn’t know about it. The others do too, probably. At least they did.” His foot finds Jonghyun’s, and of all things he tries a smile on him, as painful as it is real. “I’m not dumb, hyung.”

“Not like me?” Jonghyun snaps, turning his whole body away from Taemin. He should just get up, walk away, make Taemin catch up. He could. “You have a lot to say for someone who doesn’t know what they’re talking about.”

“I’m sorry, hyung. You’re not stupid.”

“You’re not sorry about the rest of it?” Jonghyun says to the sky, into nothing. No reply. That’s all Taemin has to say to him. That’s it. Minutes pass, each one longer than the last. Finally Jonghyun gives in, lets himself lose, and faces him. And just like that, Taemin’s all he can see again, hands twisted together in his lap, head down, shoulders hunched. “Look at hyung, look at me.”

“What are you telling me for, anyway?”

That probably shouldn’t make Jonghyun smile. It takes everything he’s got to keep it out of his voice. “You’re still mad about that too? I said I was sorry, I am sorry.” He’s not sure how to tell Taemin this next thing, if it’s too weird, so he starts with, “It’s not that I didn’t want to tell you—”

_I just didn’t want you to know. I didn’t want you to look at me differently._

“It’s okay,” Taemin interrupts him, voice tight. “I don’t need you to lie to me, you already have to do everything else.” This time when Jonghyun catches himself reaching for him he just goes with it, holds Taemin’s face in his hands and raises his chin, so that Taemin has nowhere to look but him. Taemin can only take about two seconds of that, and then he comes out with it. “I can’t do anything for you, hyung. I try but it’s no good. I keep making things harder on you, too.”

Jonghyun should probably stop watching Taemin’s face and start worrying about his own. He doesn’t know what he looks like right now, what Taemin will make of him, just that Taemin has never looked prettier. Pajama pants, glasses, bags under his eyes, bed hair, Jonghyun takes it all in. He wants to keep it inside him forever.

Finally he finds it in himself to say, “I’ve met one of Manager Hyung’s girlfriends. I don’t know if she’s the one he was talking about, but the timing fits.” He lets Taemin go, goes back to keeping his hands to himself. “Aren’t you curious? Mm?” Bumps Taemin’s shoulder with his own. “Taeminnie?”

“You’re probably right, it probably wasn’t her,” Taemin says, and Jonghyun probably is, but he got Taemin to think about it, and that’s all he was going for. And he doesn’t have to try again to get Taemin to say, “It’d be better to leave Manager Hyung alone.”

“She used to work at SM.”

Taemin forgets himself in his surprise. “You’re saying I knew her too? Were they dating in secret or something?”

“They would’ve had to announce it for you to notice. You’re always the last person to know, Taemin-ah.” Jonghyun scrubs his fingers through Taemin’s hair. Pulls a little, maybe. But anyway. “She was a stylist for SNSD, you would’ve seen her at SM Town. She was close with some of our coordi noonas.”

Jonghyun can’t really remember her face anymore, or her personality, or her name, or anything important. At one point he thought he knew Jihye’s everything. He has no reason to believe she’d hate any of them, not Manager Hyung, and definitely not him. Not like Jihye. There’s nothing obvious connecting her to Yonsei. With Jihye there is. All Jonghyun has is that one time three years ago he caught her and Manager Hyung making out backstage in between sets, and Manager Hyung’s idea of chivalry was to leave her and drag Jonghyun off, find something to keep him busy, make him forget. That and the fact that she’s _not_ Jihye, and that one thing has Taemin smiling at him again, and Jonghyun doesn’t want to do anything that could make him stop.

He smiles back.

Taemin’s been watching him so closely, and now he says, “Are you sure you’d be okay if we do find anything out? You can leave it to the company.”

“It can’t hurt at this point. I’m going crazy.” Taemin just looks at him some more. “What, you don’t want to help me ask around? I guess I could go to Jinki hyung again~”

“I’ll help,” Taemin says, like magic. “You’re better off with me.”

Jonghyun reaches up to pinch Taemin’s cheek, but instead he finds himself brushing his knuckles across it. “You’re taking responsibility for me?”

Taemin beams at him, brighter than the moon. On the way back he finds Jonghyun’s hand with his own. Jonghyun hangs on tight.

 

They have to wait a week to get their chance with the coordi noonas. And then it’s only thanks to Etude House. Jinki is the only one that ever gets excited over CF’s anymore, but this time they’re selling make up instead of chicken, so Manager Hyung had to drag him out of bed, same as the rest of them.

Leading up to promotions, for as long as Shinee’s existence narrows down to the studio, the dorm, the practice room, they’re allowed to let themselves go. All they’ve had to worry about since December is taking care of their skin and keeping their weight down. This is the first day in weeks where Jonghyun hated what he saw in the mirror coming out of the shower, and caking on make up just made it worse. And now it’s taking an extra million years just to turn them back into human beings, lingering in their waiting room after the shoot. He only feels like himself again when he’s in his sweatpants, face fresh and clean and make up free, and he can do stuff like rub his eyes and scratch his head without second-guessing.

Taemin wasn’t human to begin with, he’s a fairy, and that doesn’t change when he emerges from behind the screen, shirt on backwards, cracking his jaw with a yawn. Jonghyun puts all his energy into figuring out a way to remind Taemin he can’t crash just yet, they have to ask about Manager Hyung’s ex, but that’s all moot when Scary Noona beats him to Taemin, cornering him with a fistful of hair extensions and a glower on her face. Jonghyun can’t think of a way to rescue him.

“Go on, Taeminnie,” Kibum says. He probably thinks he’s helping. “It’s better to try them on now. We’re just going home, nobody will see if they don’t suit you.”

“It’s not that,” Taemin begins, and then it’s like he’s run out of words, like he can’t come up with a good excuse.

“It won’t hurt. Jinmyung-ssi knows what she’s doing better than any of us,” one of the coordi noonas says, taking the rumpled bundle of designer clothes from him, even though he’s looking past her, at Jonghyun. “She’ll show you how to take them out, too.”

Jonghyun’s never heard Scary Noona say that much for herself, and she has nothing to add now. Just presses a hand between Taemin’s shoulder blades and steers him towards the make up table. There’s no way he’ll ever get anything out of her. Jonghyun is on his own.

He had no luck with any of the noonas earlier, letting them fix his outfit and touch up his face in between take after take after take, trying to make conversation in the middle of all that. But there are quicker ways to get them to talk, and now that he has the time, there are vending machines in the hallways and change in his sweatpants pocket. Coffee and snacks and patience buy Jonghyun two things.

The first is a name: Moon Sokyung.

“She’s married now. Was it last year?” one of the coordi noonas tells him straight off, and she means something else when she wrinkles her nose and says, “Sokyung-ssi was too pretty to work forever.”

Jonghyun feels a flash of regret for Manager Hyung, but he wasn’t actually trying to set him up, and he only dated her for a summer. It’s probably nothing to him now, whether he was good enough for her or not. And anyway, the second thing. The important one. The one that’s made him deaf to the others’ chatter, waiting with bated breath for Taemin to come back, so he can see his face when he tells him.

Or just see his face. And his hair.

Whatever.

“She always said her little sister was the pretty one. The way Sokyung-ssi told it, she had nothing on her.”

“It wasn’t just in looks, either. She had brains, too. Their family has everything but money. ”

“Sokyung-ssi’s hubby works in an office, and her sister got into SNU. Money should follow.”

“Aigoo, let’s not exaggerate. Seoul? She wasn’t on that level.”

“Yonsei, it was Yonsei. I’m surprised you guys don’t remember better, that’s all we heard about for weeks.”

Yeah.

Maybe it’s not much, and more likely than not it’ll end up being nothing, and if he couldn’t think of a reason why Manager Hyung’s ex would hate them he won’t even bother coming up with an excuse for her sister…but it’s more than Jonghyun ever expected to get.

It’s a start.

“Did you get bored waiting for me?”

Jonghyun turns at the sound of Taemin’s voice, and then maybe his heart stops.

“Hyung?”

Taemin’s gone through more hairstyles than Jonghyun has room in his head to remember. Blond, red, brown, black, long, short, straight, wavy, at some point the coordi noonas have tried it on him. Jonghyun has seen it all, a hundred different versions of Taemin, each one just as pretty as the last.

Looking at Taemin right now, Jonghyun forgets all that. Everything else too. He forgets himself. He forgets he’s supposed to answer. He forgets how to talk.

Taemin is so beautiful.

He forgets the others even exist, until Minho pets Taemin’s head and says, “You look like Heechul hyung,” and Jinki circles around behind him, sifting his hands through his hair, trying to figure out where his ends and the extensions begin.

And somehow he forgot that he had something to tell Taemin, too, and now they’re out in the parking lot and Manager Hyung is right there, and it’s too late.

Tomorrow. When he’s had time to adjust, build up an immunity. When he can look at Taemin without Taemin taking his breath away and blowing up his brain and setting his skin on fire. When Taemin stops getting prettier every time Jonghyun sneaks glances at him, when Taemin stops turning his muscles to jelly just by looking at him, touching him, smiling at him like normal.

When Jonghyun’s heart slows down.

 

“How did you get that out of Scary Noona?”

Taemin’s been poring over Moon Sokyung’s SNS page for the last five minutes, and he doesn’t look up from his phone now. “I just asked.”

“And she just gave it to you?” Jonghyun says, incredulous.

“Mm,” is all Taemin has to say to that, like that’s all completely normal, and then, “Ah—!” sharp and pained, straight to Jonghyun’s dick.

Jonghyun needs a few seconds. Lowering the brush to rub his hand over Taemin’s scalp, he says, “Sorry. Am I being too rough?” and hopes that didn’t come out too weird.

Taemin cranes back to look at him. “I thought you said you used to do your sister’s hair? She must have put up with a lot.”

Jonghyun’s this close to losing control here, if Taemin so much as breathes on him he might do Jonghyun in. It’s too much already, struggling with himself where Taemin can see. Jonghyun takes Taemin’s head in his hands and turns him to face forward again. Falls back on the firmest hyung-knows-best voice he can muster to tell him, “Don’t sleep in them next time. Scary Noona told you how to take them out, right?”

“Probably?”

Only Taemin. There are a thousand ways Jonghyun could make fun of him for this, but instead he goes back to work, gathering Taemin’s hair up in his hand and starting from the bottom, short, gentle strokes, teasing the snarls out. Taemin made such a big deal about this whole long hair thing, but he forgot he was even wearing extensions by the time they got back to the dorm last night. He only remembered this morning once he got in the shower and tried washing his hair, and now it’s up to Jonghyun to make it better. It’d probably be better to just take them out at this point, but Jonghyun gave Taemin his phone instead of looking up how, and now here he is, sitting behind Taemin on his bed, torturing himself.

The scent of Taemin’s shampoo. His soft hair, whispering against Jonghyun’s skin. The nape of his neck and the curve of his spine.

His voice, telling Jonghyun, “It seems like they’re really close, though.” It takes him so long to finish that thought Jonghyun forgets he’s waiting, kind of lightheaded. “Moon Sokyung and Scary Noona. She’s in half of these pictures.”

Jonghyun leans forward to take a look, resting his chin on Taemin’s shoulder. At first he doesn’t even recognize her, but that’s only because he’s never once seen her smile, not over the rest of the noonas’ jokes, the members’ aegyo, a job well done, not even at the end of the work day, when she can give hating them all a rest. It changes her whole face, and he’s not sure if it suits her so well it scares him, or if it just makes her look scarier. Either way, scary. Maybe if he’d met the person in the photos first it’d be different.

“What about the sister, aren’t they close at all?” Jonghyun says, moving on.

He added his sister on his personal SNS, but he’s closer to her than almost anyone, and there’s no point pretending to privacy, when she already knows everything about him. He’s not sure how it is for most people.

“How would I know?” Taemin says, which, fair enough. But then he follows that up by throwing Jonghyun an evil look over his shoulder, and saying, “I don’t know what she looks like, and somebody didn’t get her name.”

“It shouldn’t be that hard to figure it out. Let me see.” Taemin doesn’t listen, because he never does. Jonghyun tries again, helpless. “It’s my phone, Taemin-ah.”

He can’t see Taemin’s smile from here, but it’s in his voice when he says, “As soon as you find mine I’ll give it back~”

Jonghyun lays the brush down to take it from him. Taemin resists, holding it out of his reach, and Jonghyun can’t have that. Pitching forward and snatching at it doesn’t work, just makes Taemin climb onto his knees, arm stretching up towards Jonghyun’s bed. He gives Taemin five seconds to think he’s won, then grabs his hips and hauls him down into his arms instead, getting ahold of his wrists and working on his fingers. Taemin squirms against him, trapped and struggling, laughing with his whole body, and by the time Jonghyun realizes how little he thought this through it’s too late for him. Taemin’s under his skin, eating him up, getting him hard.

Jonghyun’s dick is hard, so hard, all for him. Taemin’s so soft and warm, and he smells like strawberries and all Jonghyun would have to do is pull Taemin in, and he could taste him. But Taemin is impossible. He has no idea what he’s doing to Jonghyun, and he’s like an inch from finding out, and.

Taemin gathers his strength and jerks out of Jonghyun’s grip, and the phone shoots out of his hand, landing at the foot of the bed. Taemin’s up on all fours in a second, stretching to get there first. How could he know that Jonghyun’s muscles have stopped working. He probably doesn’t even realize his ass is in Jonghyun’s face, or that it’s taking everything Jonghyun’s got to keep his hands to himself.

Jonghyun can’t live like this. He really can’t. He has to do something about it.

He doesn’t do anything. They pick up where they left off, and Jonghyun puts a pillow in his lap and sits further away than before. Waits for the shower to cut off, for his turn to come, and tries his best not to imagine the things he wants to do to Taemin in the meantime.

Finally Taemin says, “Here’s someone named Moon Mikyung.” At most there are five hundred thousand Moons in the country, and here’s one with the same generation name. And, “She goes to Yonsei.” And finally, the detail anyone but Taemin would have started with, “Look, she’s tagged here. ‘Sisters’ night out, heart heart heart.’”

Just then the bathroom door clicks open, and Minho calls down the hall, “Shower, hyung.”

Jonghyun passes the brush through Taemin’s hair one more time, and he can stop now. He needs to stop. It flows like silk into his hand, and it’s so soft and sweet when he pushes his face into it and breathes Taemin in. Using Taemin’s shoulders to lever himself onto his knees, he tells him, lips pressed to his hair, “See if you can find out where she works.”

It’s the only thing left in Jonghyun’s head when he stands under the water and takes himself in his hand.

taemin. taemin. taemin.

Taemin.

Jonghyun comes biting back his name, and the next time he sees him, struggling into his coat and laughing at something Jinki’s said, his skin doesn’t crawl with shame. He doesn’t feel dirty, looking at him. When Taemin hangs onto his shoulder while he toes into his shoes, his hand touches Jonghyun deep inside, and Jonghyun takes his weight, wishing they could stay like this until it settles into his bones. He’s fine right where he is.

Kibum is not. “Hello, _go.”_

“He’s fallen asleep like this before,” Minho says, waving his hand in front of Jonghyun’s face. Minho’s only playing along to rile Kibum up some more, but Jonghyun’s not playing. He can’t snap out of it. He won’t.

He doesn’t even want to.

“Manager Hyung went to get the van already. You’re killing the planet right now.”

Kibum doesn’t wait for an answer, or bother to hide his smile, pushing Jonghyun out of the way and into Taemin. Taemin laughs in Jonghyun’s face, and all Jonghyun can do is smile back.

“Let’s go, hyung.”

 

Since their first couple of days with “Sherlock’s” choreography, sweating it out in three-minute bursts, they’ve cut the music, and their practices have slowed to a crawl. They’re on Jonghyun’s least favorite part, where he can’t just watch Taemin in the corner of his eye and try to match him, because there are four pairs of eyes on him instead. Getting their bodies in sync, orbiting each other, testing their weak points as one, all that shit. It’s so much harder than it looks to figure out how much power to put into each step, how high or low, small or big their movements should be, where to look for each other when.

It takes a million years to hit lunch, and then another million to reach their afternoon break, the dressing that was on his salad climbing up his throat all the while. The next time Jonghyun gets up he knows he won’t get off his feet until the moon’s risen over Seoul. There’s nothing to see outside their window anyway, and all they have in here is a wall of blue sky he’d kind of like to put his foot through.

“I get that you hate it. I got it two million years ago,” Minho says.

He’s not talking to Jonghyun. Why would he be? Since Taemin left for the bathroom a minute back, Jonghyun’s given himself over to the ceiling. He’s just lying here on the floor and letting his sweat dry, he’s not the one who’s wasting his break huffing and sighing and bitching. 

And now Kibum snaps, “How would you like it, if we switched?”

“It wouldn’t work, you couldn’t get up as high.”

They’ve been having this same conversation for days, ever since they began to break down the part of the choreo where Minho jumps over Kibum. The two of them have never not pulled it off without a hitch. The problem is everything each of them does before and after has to be perfect, and getting everybody to one hundred percent is taking forever. They’ve had to do the jump over and over and over, rubbing Kibum’s nerves raw.

Even so, Kibum can’t really argue with that, so instead he smirks at Minho and says, “Are you trying to say my legs are short? They just aren’t as thick and muscly as some people’s, is all~”

If Jonghyun was thinking about telling the two of them to shut up, that makes him think better of it. They’d just gang up on him instead, and if Jinki’s finally gotten his breath back he’d probably join in too, just to call Jonghyun Jamong. 

Minho overlooks it, too. All he has to say to that is, “You might as well trust me, I know what I’m doing.” Jonghyun’s pretty sure Minho didn’t think that one through, and sure enough, Kibum’s already opening his mouth to retort. Minho gets there first somehow. “Anyway, if I trip over you it’ll be worse for me, I’ll fall on my face.”

“So? I won’t even be able to laugh, I’ll be in pain.”

“So it’ll hurt me more. So it won’t happen. So don’t worry.”

Before Kibum can take his turn, Jinki cuts across him and says, “Does it hurt? It hurts me as well,” in an accent straight out of a sageuk. “Don’t hurt me.” His smile lingers but his voice is back to normal when he goes on. “Leave it, Kibum-ah. You’re fighting over nothing.”

They’ve _been_ fighting over nothing, this is just the first time in a long time Jinki’s had enough of it. Today’s been hardest of all on him, stretching him thin and wearing him out. When it comes to dancing, he’s always the first one to break a sweat, and the last person to get it right. His body quit on him by lunch, and this time he’ll probably need Jonghyun to haul him to his feet. This isn’t something he can laugh off.

None of that stops Kibum from judging Jinki. “Keep out of it, hyung. Why are you quoting _Damo_ all of the sudden, anyway?”

“There’s a time and a place for that,” Minho adds, and all Jonghyun can think is _great, you too._ “This isn’t it. It never is, with you.”

“His problem isn’t timing, he’d have to say something useful first.”

“Like you two can talk,” Jonghyun says, because somehow they both missed the part where they’re less funny than Jinki, and like fifty times more annoying, and he doesn’t need their shit right now. “You never shut up when you should, and you never listen, either.”

When Kibum throws him a withering look and says, “Aigoo, that means a lot, coming from you,” Jonghyun figures he can take that much, since he was asking for it. But Kibum’s not done. “Do you even listen to yourself? Because you should give that a try some time.”

Jonghyun’s not sure what that’s supposed to mean, but he doesn’t really care. “And now you’re talking back too. Aigoo.”

“You’re only a year older than us, you know,” Minho says, turning on Jonghyun too.

“Uh huh. And you’ll always be a year younger than me.” Jonghyun can see where this is going, and there’s not much he can do about it. Still, he gives it a try. “That’s just how it works, so you can shut up now.”

“Yep, and you’ll always be old,” Kibum shoots back, quicker than Minho can even. He gives Jonghyun an evil smile. “And you’ll just get older. Taeminnie said you have grey hairs already~”

Only three or four the last time he let his roots grow out. And he only told Taemin. Taemin told him it was just stress, then pulled them out for him and told Jonghyun he was showing signs of balding, too, and gave himself away laughing before Jonghyun could even get his hands on him. And then apparently he went and told the others all about it.

Jonghyun should have kept his mouth shut, then and now. He should have let them bully Jinki and survived alone. And now Jinki’s no use, leaning back on his hands and watching the three of them like a tennis match, too tired to hitch a smile on his face.

“If one year is enough to make you know everything, I guess you should do whatever Jinki hyung says, and Manager Hyung must be Buddha,” Minho says. “You don’t get to tell us what to do, hyung. That’s not cool.”

Sometimes somebody has to, and it’s not like Jonghyun and Jinki enjoy it when it’s them, but whatever. Minho’s putting way too much thought into this. All Jonghyun wanted was some peace and quiet, and now Minho’s questioning the world order. He should shut up and wait until they next play yaja time. Then Jonghyun will call him hyungnim all he wants.

“Aigoo, I’m so tired, my whole body hurts, I guess I’m too old for this shit~” Jonghyun says, scrubbing his hands over his face to hide his smile. “Minho-yah,” he begins, then switches to, “Kibum-ah. Go get me some water~”

Kibum smirks, and he knows what to do. He flips on Minho right away. “Minho-yah, water.”

Minho’s face falls open, but if Kibum’s two months older than him he’s two months older, the end, and Jonghyun’s never been able to tell Minho anything about learning to take a joke. It’s only a matter of seconds before his head explodes, and Jonghyun should probably be taking cover, but right then Taemin walks in, and spoils everything.

Not that he knows it, fresh and clean, shoes squeaking, water dripping from his chin, hair dark and wet, falling loose from his ponytail. Not that he cares either. He shuts out their stares, wiping his face with his shirt, and Jonghyun forgets all about it too, watching Taemin’s stomach rise and fall. He’s still learning how to talk again when Minho takes the out he’s been given.

“Taemin-ah, go get us some water.”

Taemin emerges, and his face is up there. Jonghyun probably shouldn’t be lingering like this on Taemin’s navel, his skin glistening with sweat, but it isn’t any harder to meet his eyes in the end, when Taemin finally realizes his shirt is still caught up in his hands, and ruins Jonghyun’s view.

“Water?”

Kibum helps him out. “We’re all dying of thirst here.”

Taemin blinks around at all of them, and for a second there Jonghyun thinks he’s going to have to get up after all, if Taemin turns to go, because he can’t carry all that on his own. But instead Taemin says, “Get it yourselves,” and flops down next to Jonghyun. Returns his smile as easy as anything.

Nobody ever needed to, but Jinki goes in the end. Jonghyun feels guilty enough that he escapes Taemin’s orbit and catches up to him in the hallway, following him to the vending machines on the next floor up. Then bends down to collect the bottles as Jinki finds the change to pay for them, because he’s pretty sure it took everything out of Jinki just to climb the stairs. He’s got this look on his face like his muscles are screaming at him, and he’s thinking he’d be better off without them. Jonghyun thinks about telling him they only have to go down after this, on their way out to the van, too, but the time in between is the biggest problem. Just thinking twenty minutes ahead has Jonghyun so frustrated with life he can’t see straight.

Finally Jinki says, “Is it just me, or is it worse now that Kibummie and Minho don’t hate each other?”

“It’s not just you.”

“If they get any closer, we won’t be able to handle them. All we have is Taeminnie,” Jinki says. He thunks his forehead against the machine, perfect picture of despair. “I can’t handle him, either. He’s too much for me.”

Jonghyun smiles. He can’t help it.

“That’s only because he’s so cute. Those two aren’t cute at all, they’re a problem.”

_It’s not just you._

 

“Taemin-ah.”

“What, hyung?”

There are a lot things Jonghyun could say.

“Nothing.”

He puts his head down, so he doesn’t have to hear or see or smell money for a while. 

As best they can tell, Moon Mikyung works three jobs. She works weekdays in the library at Yonsei, when Jonghyun and Taemin are working themselves. She tutors high school kids. Jonghyun offered to sign Taemin up, but instead of hitting Jonghyun or sitting on him or something, Taemin said he’d never speak to him again if he did, so here they are. Jonghyun wishes her third job involved standing at a register somewhere or delivering chicken or Chinese food, something convenient and cheap. Instead she works nights here, at the fanciest barbecue restaurant Jonghyun’s ever been to, grilling meat for the lucky few who can afford to eat it in Gangnam.

Jonghyun is not one of those people.

He and Taemin only got out of practice an hour or two ago and it took them forever to find this place, because Taemin never bothered to look up the address until they were already in the car, and by the time he did it was too late to go back and change. They showed up in sweatpants and sneakers and wet hair. Once he realized he wasn’t going to melt into the floor after all, it took Jonghyun forever to stop feeling naked. Nobody’s recognized them, nobody’s even stared at them, except for the woman who brought them to their table and left them to rot for the last half hour.

“She’ll be here,” Taemin tells him, like that’s the problem right now.

Taemin is. He doesn’t seem to care how they look. Kibum finally freed him of his extensions, maybe that’s why. Or maybe it’s because he’s Taemin. If Jonghyun had asked for Jinki’s help, Jonghyun’s wallet would be safe. He’d be safe. Instead he has Taemin smiling at him from across the table, just trying not to give himself away, ask for too much. Taemin’s never taken advantage of him on this level before, and all Jonghyun can bring himself to do about it is say, “What do you want, Taeminnie?”

Taemin hesitates, the way he’s not supposed to. “What about you, hyung? Pork belly?”

Before Jonghyun can stop himself he’s saying, “They have hanwoo beef,” and then he’s left telling himself it’s only because Taemin never gets to eat it, it’s not that he’s being weak. He’ll hate himself later, when the check comes.

“I know, I saw.” Taemin takes two seconds to pretend to think it over, before he says, beaming, “We could always get both~”

Taemin is impossible, but saying no to him shouldn’t be. All Jonghyun has to do is keep his eyes off him, and bite back his own smile, and remind himself he isn’t playing hard to get when Taemin says, “It’s okay, we burned like a million calories today,” and then, “Aren’t you hungry, hyung? You skipped breakfast and you hated your lunch.”

In the end Jonghyun doesn’t have a choice. He starts with the beef, adds pork belly, then gopchang too, until the woman taking their order decides he’s spent enough money to request Moon Mikyung’s services specially. She starts the grill and leaves them to it, and that’s it. At this point Jonghyun should probably be more worried about how they’re going to eat all that, if he’s going to have to roll Taemin out to the car.

When he turns to Taemin again he forgets that, because suddenly Taemin’s looking like he’s too nervous to keep anything down. And they’re not here to eat, and Jonghyun’s nervous too, but still. “We couldn’t have planned any more than we did, Taeminnie. We have no way of knowing what she’s like or how she’ll react.” Taemin nods, breathes, hands balled into fists on the tabletop. Jonghyun wants to touch him, reach across the table and pry his fingers open, thread them together with his own. “Are you worried she’ll take everything out on your hanwoo~? If she does, hyung will buy you something else. Whatever you want.”

“Focus, hyung.”

Fine then. Jonghyun is focused.

He’s not freaking the fuck out. He’s not wondering what the hell they’re doing here, playing detective, seeking out someone who might hate their guts. And maybe it’s worse if she doesn’t, because then all they’re doing, bringing it up, is taking their shit out on an innocent person. He doesn’t want to wait and see how badly this turns out, he wants to take Taemin and run. The grill gets hotter and hotter, and Jonghyun’s feet get colder and colder, and—

Time. She’s here. Moon Mikyung.

She doesn’t look like fate, she just looks like someone whose bad night is bound to get worse. The girl they stalked on SNS took no make up selcas like a religion, but the one in front of them is put together within an inch of her life, same as the rest of the staff, neat uniform, tight bun, back straight, blank face.

Still, she stops short when she gets a good look at them both, and her expression slips. That’s all the warning Jonghyun gets.

“What, you’re tired of hiding behind SM? You decided to show up yourselves? Where are the other two?”

The first shot. It comes out of nowhere and leaves Jonghyun dizzy. Somehow this is real life. They’re really doing this, there’s no way back, she started it.

Taemin does no better.

“Three,” he corrects her, pointlessly.

If anyone asked her, she’d probably just say she doesn’t know or care which ones he and Jonghyun are. But Jonghyun doesn’t know or care if that’s true, because Taemin’s biting his lip, ducking his head. Staring at the table instead of her, hunching in on himself like that one word took everything he had. Knowing Taemin, it probably did. But Jonghyun can’t take care of him now, he has to get a grip, he has to deal with her.

She’s not done, even. “I already told your manager I had nothing to do with those rumors like a million times. You think you guys are any scarier?”

Huh?

Manager Hyung?

Jonghyun never told him he and Taemin were digging around. But nobody told Manager Hyung to look into whoever posted in the first place, either. Maybe he connected the dots like they did, finally, maybe he kept it inside for the same reasons they did, maybe she’s the only Yonsei student he could think to check up on, maybe—

No maybes. Jonghyun will just ask him about this, her, when they get back. If they get back, if she doesn’t eat them alive.

“You want to act like you don’t know him?” Jonghyun manages. “”He dated your sister. He has a name.”

“Leave my sister out of it.”

She’s about to say more when the woman from before returns, leading an older couple past their booth. Moon Mikyung must have eyes in the back of her head, because suddenly she’s all business, laying the first cuts of meat onto the grill. Jonghyun counts his breaths and pushes his foot against Taemin’s under the table. Taemin almost smiles, tight and strange. Just nerves.

Only once she’s safe again does she cut her eyes up to his, face a mask. “Are you trying to make me into a joke, doing this to me at work?”

It wasn’t the best idea, no. Not even a good one. Just better than showing up at her home in the middle of the night, or any of the options they’d have to wait months to find daylight for. But Jonghyun is having a hard time giving a shit right now.

“What about you? You had the whole country laughing at us.”

“You can’t prove that, or you wouldn’t be here, talking to me,” she says, like she’s daring them to try calling her on anything. “And anyway, this isn’t the Internet, this is real life. Not that I’d expect you to get that.” Of all things, she smiles, so fake it makes Jonghyun’s skin crawl, and asks for Jonghyun’s plate. He does what he’s told, just to get that awful _the customer is always right~_ look off her face. Then sits there and chews up all the money he made today as she tells him, “All you people ever have to do is take what you’re given, and smile for the cameras. But the smallest thing goes wrong, and you’re looking for someone else to blame. It’s pathetic.”

The beef melted in his mouth, but it goes down like gravel. Jonghyun should have fed it to Taemin. He would have, if Taemin would even touch his own. But Taemin’s gone stock still, trying to hide in plain sight, and all Jonghyun can think is he should have gone alone, he should never have taken Taemin here. Taemin shouldn’t have to listen to this.

“It’s not your place to tell anyone else how small their problems are,” Jonghyun says, as soon as he can speak. “You can just worry about your own.”

Somehow that got under her skin, because she barely lets him finish before she retorts, “You’re one of them,” and when she takes a deep breath, and another, it does her no good. Her lip curls, and the next time she opens her mouth, it’s to say, “You’re the ones making such a big deal over a little bit of criticism. You can’t even take that much. The netizens are already back on oppa~ this and oppa~ that. Should I try calling you oppa too, would that be enough?”

_Then should I call you noona?_

Jonghyun bites his tongue and tastes blood. Takes more meat and stuffs his mouth to shut himself up.

He doesn’t get how she’s kept this job with a temper like that, how he and Taemin could possibly offend her more than everyone else in this place combined, when they’re probably the only people who’ve talked to her like a human being all night, let her talk back too. She’s probably bowed and smiled and gritted her teeth while people let their kids fuck with her, complained to her, complained about her, put on airs, said things that made her crazy, bullied her for more soju, played grab ass.

But she hates them. She doesn’t even count as an anti, she’d have to know every last thing about them, just to hate every last thing about them. She doesn’t know the first thing. She just hates them for existing, and it’s like she’s made it her job to let them know how much.

This isn’t a joke.

“Mikyung-ssi,” Jonghyun begins, and it’s like his throat is closing up, squeezing his voice down to nothing. He doesn’t even know what he’s about to say, just that he has to get it out. “You had nothing to do with those rumors, but you wish you did, is that it? If you’re trying to protect yourself, try harder. And if you’re not, if you aren’t lying, how does shitting on us help you?”

“Like it hurts you,” she replies. “Nobody ever tells me I’m perfect. Nobody ever drops everything to give me their love or their money or their time.” And there’s that smile again. “I’ve never eaten this beef. I survive just fine.”

Jonghyun has had enough of her. Before he can stop himself he snaps, “Nobody tells lies about you, either. Nobody twists your words, turns you into something you’re not. Nobody hates you just because they can,” and he can’t make himself take it back.

It’s too late.

“And nobody told lies about you. You guys don’t know my life, but I know yours,” she says, face gone strange, almost as though she’s choking down a laugh. As if that would be the thing to get her in trouble, if anyone else heard. “Fan service, lip syncing, skin bleaching, plastic surgery. Image. None of those things count as fake, none of them count as lies? You can dodge enlistment with a doctor’s note. You can just buy the degree I’m busting my ass to get, you’re that great.” She sneers. “I guess a pretty lie is better than an ugly truth, since people want to believe in it. Nobody cares how stupid it is.”

There’s so much Jonghyun could say to that. There’s nothing.

Half the things she’s talking about, Shinee’s never done. But that’s not the point, when there’d be nothing wrong with them if they had. Some people who hate idols think their music doesn’t count as art, and some think idols don’t count, period. To them, it’s like idols don’t have a side. It’s like they don’t have brains or hearts, just a pretty face or a cute smile or a good body. Like they’re something to look at, like they’re good for nothing else. People get to tell Jonghyun his skin is too dark, but if he gave in and bleached it they’d judge him for that. They get to pick his face apart, but if he got anything fixed they’d make him into a freak. If he has an opinion, they say he’s arrogant. If he doesn’t, he’s uneducated. Whatever he has for himself, however far he’s gotten in life, he didn’t earn it. No matter what he does, even if he does nothing, he’s wrong.

To them, to Moon Mikyung, his life is a joke. Jonghyun is a joke. Taemin is too.

“It’s not your life or your body. Who asked you?”

Taemin.

Jonghyun can’t see anything of his face, just the fall of Taemin’s bangs. His head is still down, he’s talking to the table. But he’s talking, and.

“You can hate us all you want, but that’s your problem. Don’t act like it’s anything we did.” Taemin’s voice isn’t his own, low and trembling, and Jonghyun has to sit on his hands to keep from reaching for him, trying to make it okay where she can see. “And so what if I’m stupid. Do you think being smart makes you right?”

Her eyes flare. “It makes me useful.”

Jonghyun has to stop Taemin, save him somehow. His nerves are on fire, his stomach is in free fall, and nobody’s yelled yet, and if she yells at Taemin Jonghyun is going to lose it. They’ll get thrown out of here and end up on the news. He takes up his chopsticks and steals some meat from the grill, reaches across the table, “Taemin-ah, aaaah,” but Taemin doesn’t listen to him. He won’t open his mouth, except to talk back to her.

“You don’t know anything about us. Do you even know our names?”

“Taemin-ah, don’t. It’s not worth it.”

She ignores Jonghyun too. “Do I have to?”

That is fucking it. Jonghyun reaches into his pocket and slaps the photo onto the table. He and Taemin wasted five minutes taping it back together, all so she’d be able to recognize it, if she could.

“What about this?” he says, sliding it towards her. She doesn’t bend down to see, just stares down her nose at it. Then she blinks, her brow creases, and her eyes flit up to his. “We don’t care about the rumors. Why Jihye89? Do you know Kim Jihye?”

For the first time all night, he gets her to hesitate.

Finally she says, “I don’t know what that is, I don’t know who you’re talking about,” and if she’s lying this time, it’s for real. She’s not trying to fuck with him, say one thing, mean another.

Taemin doesn’t care about any of that. The rumors or the photo, whether she’s lying or not. None of it.

Because all of the sudden he asks her, “How long is your shift?” and catches Jonghyun out too. “Do your legs hurt already?” Taemin takes a deep breath, lifts his head to look her straight in the eye. “Mine hurt, sitting here. It hurts to walk too. We got to work at six today, we got out at ten. We were on our feet all day. Dance practice.” Deep breath. “Tomorrow we’ll do it again, and I’ll stay late. Jonghyun hyung too.” Finally he breaks, but he doesn’t hide, just looks at Jonghyun instead, like he’s hanging on for dear life, like Jonghyun is all he’s got. Jonghyun won’t look away, he won’t blink, even if he can’t breathe and now his heart is going and. “And we’ll keep doing our best and working our hardest and going through all the bad things where people like you don’t get to see it. We’ll show our good side to our fans.”

“Taeminnie, it’s okay, it’s okay,” and somehow Jonghyun got that out.

“You said people just give us stuff,” Taemin goes on, deaf. He jerks the photo out from under Jonghyun’s fingers, holds it up. “Has anyone ever given you stuff like this? Someone keeps sending this shit to our dorm. Is it you? Do you think Jonghyun hyung deserves it?” Taemin stands, clumsy with nerves, chopsticks clattering to the floor, and all that means is Jonghyun has to get up, he has to get his legs under him, get to Taemin somehow. Before this gets any worse, before Taemin hurts himself, before she hurts Taemin more. “He’s a good person, you only hate him because you don’t know him at all. But I do, better than anyone. He doesn’t need you to like him, he’s got me.”

Next thing Jonghyun knows, Taemin’s fingers close around his wrist. He gets one last look at Moon Mikyung’s face, eyebrows raised, mouth thinned, and then it’s just the two of them. Taemin doesn’t look back until they reach the front, and Jonghyun makes him let go. He still has to pay.

The night is colder and darker and lonelier than they left it, but it’s different in the car. Jonghyun starts the engine to start the heater, then slumps back into his seat. Watches himself breathe until he can’t anymore, air grown warm and close, and Taemin’s had enough time to find his voice again.

“I’m sorry you wasted your money, hyung,” he says. “I’m sorry we didn’t find anything out.”

They didn’t come away with nothing, either. Moon Mikyung has a problem with them, clearly. Manager Hyung knows her better, and he thinks she could’ve done it. And maybe this last thing is only for Jonghyun to know, maybe it’s selfish, maybe it’s stupid. But if Taemin told Jonghyun right now that he loved him more, there’s nothing Jonghyun could do to compete, there’s nothing he could say for himself. If Taemin offered him his heart, Jonghyun would take it and never give it back, he wouldn’t care if it counted as stealing.

He wants to give Taemin his.

“It’s okay. I can’t eat in places like that anyway,” Jonghyun says, first normal thing that comes into his head. Before he realizes what he’s doing he’s reaching out, tucking a strand of hair behind Taemin’s ear, running his fingertip down Taemin’s nose. “Neither can you.”

Taemin won’t smile for him. Just looks at him, and says, “Is it okay if we don’t talk about it? Will you be okay?”

Just like that, Jonghyun’s throat closes up on him. He’s not sure what he’d sound like, so he nods, smiles. Passes his hand through Taemin’s hair and shifts into gear instead of pulling him in and holding him tight, and then he has to keep his eyes on the road. It’s late enough that traffic is down, and the city flies by. Taemin fiddles with the radio for a while, but his heart isn’t in it. Jonghyun is fine listening to his silence.

Finally Taemin says it. “Hyung.”

“Yeah?”

When Jonghyun glances at him, he finds Taemin turned towards him in his seat. Somehow Jonghyun never felt his eyes on him, but now he does, skin tingling, smile fighting its way onto his face. It’s nice.

“I like Shinee,” Taemin says.

Jonghyun does too.

“I don’t care what anyone thinks. I’m proud of us.”

“I’m proud of you,” Jonghyun says, and means it with all his heart. “You were really cool back there.”

“Hyung.”

“Taemin-ah.”

Taemin smiles, slow and tired, but his eyes light up and he’s so cute Jonghyun might explode. “I’m hungry.”

“You wanna stop for ramyun?” Jonghyun says, glancing at him.

He doesn’t care how easy he’s being, breaking out his wallet again. Taemin says he’s hungry, but Jonghyun is starving. And if Jonghyun is starving, there’s no way Taemin isn’t. Taemin chose Jonghyun over hanwoo, and now he might die if Jonghyun doesn’t feed him.

Jonghyun watches Taemin’s face, and guesses, “Tteokbokki?” Not tonight. “Bungeoppang?” Nope. “Hotteok?” Aha. “I won’t tell Manager Hyung if you don’t~”

“Let’s get extra to bring back for the others,” Taemin says. “Him, too.” 

Might as well. They need to talk to Manager Hyung anyway, and sugar always makes him easier.

When he catches Jonghyun looking at him in the mirror, Taemin looks back. Jonghyun wants to kiss all the bad things away until Taemin forgets everything but him. He wants to kiss the corners of Taemin’s mouth until they crook up. It takes him forever to realize Taemin’s returning his own smile, and a while longer to say to him, “I know you better than anyone, too. I know how hard it was for you to say all that.” Taemin meets his eyes so easily, makes it so easy for Jonghyun to say, “You know I love you, right?”

Taemin leans against his window, turning his face away, and Jonghyun has to let him. He has to stop his own greed.

“I know,” Taemin says at last.

 

“How do you guys know Mikyungie?”

Mikyungie? _Mikyungie?_

“The coordi noonas mentioned her,” Jonghyun says, getting past it. “She mentioned you.”

Not as Joomin oppa, either.

“And you thought you would do a little digging,” Manager Hyung says, frowning at them both. “You too, Taeminnie?”

The other three were in bed by the time they got back, so Taemin’s stuffing his mouth with their share of hotteok, and Manager Hyung’s asking all the questions, eyes pinging between the two of them from across the kitchen table.

“I dragged him along,” Jonghyun says, even though Taemin’s not in trouble, and it’s not like Manager Hyung would do anything to him if he were.

Taemin gives him a look, storing his mouthful in one bulging cheek. “It was my idea.”

Jonghyun resists the urge to get his hands on Taemin, mess him up, in case Taemin chokes or something. He turns back to Manager Hyung.

“What made you think it could be her? She said you keep asking her about it, you won’t leave her alone.”

Manager Hyung sighs. “I know what she’s like.” Which, fair enough. Jonghyun’s only met her once and he has a pretty good idea. Manager Hyung seems to read it on his face. “It didn’t go well for you, either, did it? It’s not you guys she has a problem with, not really. It’s this industry.”

Jonghyun wants to tell Manager Hyung to try telling her that, see how far he gets. But Manager Hyung’s not Moon Mikyung, and Jonghyun will probably never see her again, anyway, and that’s probably for the best. He and Taemin got further than either of them expected, but this is it. Jonghyun has to go back to where he started.

Himself.

Jihye.

It’s sinking in now. He’s got nothing.

“I don’t get it,” Taemin says once he’s swallowed. “Her sister worked for SM.”

“Like that’s a positive?” It just pops out of Jonghyun’s mouth, and then he’s left explaining himself, trying to get that look off Taemin’s face, caught between betrayal and confusion. “The coordi noonas go through a lot of the same things we do, Taemin-ah. They don’t get the same things out of it.”

He doesn’t add that he could live without most of it, because he doesn’t want to go there for the second time tonight, not if it means taking Taemin with him. And anyway, more importantly.

“SM fired her, the year before last,” Manager Hyung tells them.

Without thinking Jonghyun says, “She didn’t leave to get married?” and a second later he’s regretting it, working up to looking at Manager Hyung. There’s no way Manager Hyung didn’t know, and he’s had a long time to put her behind him, but that doesn’t mean he needs people asking him about it. That doesn’t mean he needs to hear about her life without him.

“She would have sooner or later, it just ended up being sooner,” Manager Hyung says, and he could be talking about the weather. His face is normal and he meets Jonghyun’s eyes like he didn’t hurt him at all, and when he smiles it reaches his eyes. “Sokyung-ssi got into this business because she was crazy about it, but it’s a lot different on this side of things. She couldn’t handle the hours, she hated it. That’s why we broke up in the end, too.” 

Jonghyun doesn’t know what he’d do with that kind of distance from his own heart. If he could handle it, if he’d even want it, if he’s taking the easy way out, hanging onto things, hating himself. Looking at how fast this thing with Moon Mikyung is headed nowhere, how long he has before he has to pick up the phone and ask around about Jihye, he thinks he’d do anything to get where Manager Hyung is. But then he looks at Taemin sitting next to him, humming as he eats, fingers sticky, mouth sweet. Taemin’s so beautiful Jonghyun’s chest hurts, so close Jonghyun can feel his warmth, so normal it’s crazy, and Jonghyun wants to spend the rest of his life right here. If Jonghyun can’t have Taemin, he still wants Taemin to have him, break him into tiny pieces until nobody else could put Jonghyun back together. He doesn’t care if he’s crazy, he doesn’t care if it’s only been a few weeks, because in this moment, Taemin feels like forever.

Taemin misses all that. “What’d she get fired for?”

Another question you can’t just ask. This one gives Manager Hyung a harder time. Finally he says, “It just wasn’t a good fit,” and that’s all.

“But how?” Taemin presses. “I’m not a kid, hyung, I’ve worked at SM as long as you have. Try me.”

It’d be too soon to make fun of him, and maybe Taemin is still back there with Moon Mikyung. Jonghyun slips his hand onto Taemin’s shoulder and down, rubbing his back, and he doesn’t know who he’s trying to help, himself or Taemin.

“She never came early or stayed late, she never drank at company parties, she never knew when to shut up and take the blame for things,” Manager Hyung rattles off, and it sounds like he’s just getting started, but he catches the look on Taemin’s face and stops. “Small things add up, Taeminnie. You start at zero, you’re already more trouble than you’re worth when they hire you. That’s why I’m here, to keep you guys from making those kinds of mistakes. You wouldn’t last a day without me.”

While Taemin’s busy digesting that, Jonghyun moves on. “What does that have to do with Moon Mikyung, though?”

“Sokyung-ssi put everything she made into Mikyungie’s tuition. Maybe that wasn’t much, but it left her with nothing when SM threw her out,” Manager Hyung says patiently. No matter what it’s about, he has an easier time answering than asking. “Mikyungie’s too smart for her own good. She’s not the type to accept help easily to begin with, and she knew how hard SM was on Sokyung-ssi. She knew how much she was taking from her, too. And now Sokyung-ssi’s probably too sorry to face her since she gave up working, and knowing her she’d be too sorry to ask her husband for help. But Mikyungie can’t pay her own way, and her parents can’t support her. She can’t live without her sister’s money. And the way the economy’s headed, graduating from Yonsei won’t guarantee her a good job.”

If Moon Mikyung is so smart, she must have known fucking with them could have fucked up her future even worse. If she knows SM so well, she must have known if they’d traced it back to her, gone after her, it would’ve ended up on her record. She was fine throwing herself away.

“You think she could have spread the rumors, but she didn’t send the photos. It’s about SM, not me,” Jonghyun says finally, even though it’s about neither. “That doesn’t explain the avatar or the username.”

Nobody needs to explain her to Jonghyun. He could be as dumb as she thinks he is, and he still wouldn’t have a hard time understanding her. He doesn’t need to think about it, so he doesn’t. Not about her, and not about all the things he’s done to himself, taken out on himself. So he sits here and takes some things out on himself right now.

He thinks that it must have been serious between Manager Hyung and Moon Sokyung, it must have been real, if he knows her family that well. He wonders if Jihye ever knew him at all, if what he sees in Moon Mikyung now, she saw in him then, when he dropped out of high school and threw himself into music. If he looked like a loser, or worse, crazy. She didn’t even believe him when he told her what he’d decided, she laughed in his face. He wonders if it was ever real for her, if she ever believed in him. He wonders if she’s spent the last four years knowing she had him wrong, or if she looks down on him like Moon Mikyung. If she has anything to say to him, because it’s been five years and he can’t think of a single thing he wants her to hear.

If Moon Mikyung was lying to him, or he’s lying to himself. If Jihye89 means anything at all, if Jihye89 _is_ Jihye.

“I don’t know what to think,” Manager Hyung says from across the galaxy. “Mikyungie’s in a bad place—”

“Are you siding with her right now?” Taemin says hotly.

“—but if she really did send those photos, she’s gone too far. If she did, she’s not the kid I knew.”

Taemin looks like he wants to argue. Jonghyun takes his wrist in his hand and Taemin shoots him a look. Holds onto him and Taemin lets him do it.

“What about Sokyung-ssi?” Jonghyun says. “When’s the last time you saw her?”

Manager Hyung doesn’t have to think about it. “At her wedding.”

The last time Jonghyun saw Jihye she was with another guy, too. She told Jonghyun that whatever he said to her, Jonghyun could say to him. He went to tell her he loved her, and he left hating himself.

He doesn’t want to go back there. He wants Taemin to drag him away, like he did before. Jonghyun wants to stay here with him.

 

“Jihye?”

Two days later, out in the cold, ten minutes into their lunch break, fifteen left before he has to get back in there and dance for another five hours, over twenty-four since he last slept. He can’t go another night.

“No, we’re still close. She’s doing well, she’s graduating this year. Oh. You want to meet up with her?”

It’s not about what Jonghyun wants.

“This weekend’s no good. You realize Monday’s the New Year, right? And anyway, she um.” Pause. Then, so carefully, “She’ll be visiting her boyfriend up at the border. He’s a year into his enlistment now.”

Jonghyun can’t picture it. Maybe she’s learned how to cook, maybe she packs up pretty lunchboxes and looks after his health. Maybe she calls ahead of time to ask what he’s craving. Maybe she waits till she gets there, then buys him chicken and pizza and Chinese, whatever he wants. The Jihye he knew would have shown up in the shortest skirt she owned and asked Jonghyun later if the other guys were jealous, but she was also eighteen.

“Jonghyun-ah…you know she’s still with him, right? It’s the same guy.”

Jonghyun doesn’t care about that, or him. He just needs to talk to her.

“But you’re asking me.”

If it weren’t important he wouldn’t be.

“I’ll see what she thinks, and get back to you.”

…There.

 

The others are still hanging around on the practice room floor when he gets back, rehydrating and shooting the shit. Jinki’s the only one not talking, because he has to put his all into breathing. Everything is normal. Jonghyun crosses over to Taemin where he’s lying spread-eagled on the floor, kicks his foot, stands over him, stares while he tries to think of something to say to him. Something normal.

Taemin just smiles.

And in the meantime, Kibum gets to him first. “You’re going home for New Year, right, Taeminnie?”

“It’ll be the last time before I graduate. My mom thinks I won’t study for finals at the dorm, she thinks you guys are bad for me or something,” Taemin says, wrinkling his nose. Jonghyun sits down beside him so he stops feeling like Taemin’s saying it to him. He doesn’t know what he feels like. “She’s taking it kinda hard. I don’t know if it’s because I’m getting old or she is.”

Minho pinches Taemin’s cheek. “How can you just say that, Taeminnie. Your mom still looks thirty.”

Kibum snorts. “You’re only saying that because she likes you best after Taeminnie.”

Jonghyun opens his mouth to protest, because he’s pretty sure Minho isn’t the one who used to take Taemin home from practice every night in their trainee days, and Minho isn’t the one who she always told to stay and eat and sleep over, and Minho isn’t the one she asks to take care of Taemin whenever they see her now.

But Minho is there. “You forgot Jonghyun hyung,” he says, and, “You must be happy Taeminnie’s going home. Knowing her, she’ll send him back with all Kim seobang’s favorite banchan~”

That’s so stupid. Stupid how hot Jonghyun’s face is getting, stupid how badly he wants to smile when he’s not happy at all, he’s not even sure he’s okay. Stupid how Taemin’s face glows pink, and he thinks he has to say, “She only knows what Jonghyun hyung likes because she’s used to feeding him. If there’s something you guys want, I can tell her.”

Jonghyun doesn’t care about that. “How long will you be gone?”

“Ummm…till Monday at least?”

Three days. At least.

“You won’t study either way,” Jonghyun says, instead of shutting up.

Taemin blinks at him, and then his mouth crimps and his face lights up. “If you’ll get bored without me I guess I could stay~”

Jonghyun doesn’t have an answer for that, and how could he, when he’s being so stupid and selfish, and it won’t go how he wants. And anyway, the only things he’s allowed to say are _your parents never get to see you,_ and _your brother’s probably home too, you’ll get to see him,_ and _think of me when you’re eating real food~._

He can’t just say, _You know how it went with Moon Mikyung. I asked a friend about Jihye just now. You probably knew I was going to. I still have to hear back. I don’t want to be alone._

Again, he’s taking too long. Kibum scoots over to take Taemin in hand, smacking his back, making him laugh, telling him, “I didn’t raise you to be such a brat. Aigoo, aigoo,” and Jonghyun should probably rescue Taemin, or let the world turn without him like Jinki.

Instead he gets up to go to the bathroom. The roof. Somewhere.

Leaves his phone.

 

When Jonghyun comes back, it’s only because he has to. When he comes back, it’s to the sound of music.

The sound of his own voice.

His demos, his fucking _phone—_

Minho holds it out of reach, high enough that Jonghyun would have to jump to get it, turns the volume up and up and up, almost shouting over the music. “You have like ten million on here, hyung. When did you find the time to record them?”

“Fucking _give it to me.”_

Kibum squawks at Jonghyun’s tone. “What are you so worked up for? Nobody was laughing till you showed up, just look at you.”

He takes the phone when Minho passes it to him, too, then hides behind him. Minho’s tall but he’s skinny, and if Jonghyun pushed any harder he’d hurt him, knock him flat on his back. “It’s not fucking funny, come on. Give it to me or I’ll get mad.”

“Looks like you’re mad already.”

“Don’t be like that, hyung. It’s good stuff.”

The other Jonghyun keeps on singing and singing and singing, blaring, strained and cracked through tiny speakers. Shit nobody else needs to hear. Shit Jonghyun’s never shown anyone.

Shit.

Finally they pass it to Taemin, and Taemin gives it to straight to Jonghyun.

Silence. Finally, finally, he shut himself up.

It’s a while before he thinks he can look Taemin in the face, but he can’t keep his eyes off him that long. Taemin wasn’t even in on the joke, and the smile on his face right now is the kind he gets when he doesn’t know what’s going on, and freezes up.

“What’s wrong, hyung?”

“What do you think?” Jonghyun snaps, breathing hard. “I mean, how would you like it if I took your stuff and—”

“You do all the time,” Kibum says loudly.

Minho steps in. “We weren’t making fun of you. You’re the one who made it weird.”

None of this needed to happen today.

“You don’t like your stuff, or something?” Taemin says, ignoring them both, stuck on Jonghyun. “If you don’t want anybody listening, I guess you don’t.” When Jonghyun turns away, Taemin reaches out, fingers caught in Jonghyun’s sleeve, eyes shining like this is important. “You wrote it, hyung.”

If Taemin thinks that’s reason enough for Jonghyun to like it, if he thinks that should be so obvious, there’s nothing Jonghyun can really say. He still has to try, because it’s Taemin. “It’s personal, Taeminnie. If you don’t want to talk I don’t make you, so don’t try and make me,” but that does no good, just makes Taemin’s face fall. “A lot of it’s about stuff you wouldn’t get.”

That’s worse. Jonghyun’s being mean, and he knows it, even if Taemin doesn’t, even if Taemin just blurts out, “I didn’t mean it like that. Just… _I_ liked them. I liked what I got to hear.”

Jonghyun doesn’t know if he’s about to explode, or what. He needs to stop talking. He needs to get the fuck over it. Minho and Kibum are right there, ready to jump on anything he says, and Jinki is slowly, slowly, getting his legs under him. Jonghyun doesn’t know if he wants to trap Taemin in his arms, squeeze him tight enough to crush him, take everything clawing him up inside out on Taemin’s body. Or what.

He can just take it out on his own. “Let’s just do this.”

They do. Over and over and over. And over. And over. Jonghyun dances as hard as he can, for as long as he can, but it doesn’t take him anywhere, and it doesn’t do him any good. He can’t get out of his body. He can’t get out of his head. This feeling inside him builds and builds and builds, wraps around him tighter. tighter. tighter.

They go back to the beginning again. The song starts again. Jonghyun does his thing, again.

He’s off. His body takes its time listening to him, movements stiff and sharp and jerky. He puts his back into it. He thinks he’s got it, spinning away from the others, he’s got this. But then he throws his arm back and his hand hits something solid, and it’s Taemin’s face.

He just hit Taemin in the face.

Soon as he gets the chance, he gets his first look at him, and Taemin’s still frozen in position, half-crouched at the front of the line now. Arms trembling, mouth pressed into a thin line. Taemin catches his eye right away, and there’s one second where Jonghyun forgets himself.

It’s one second too long. “Sherlock” doesn’t give a fuck, it keeps going. He’s totally off. He’s totally fucking up. It’s totally not funny.

Taemin laughs out loud.

Next thing Jonghyun knows, Taemin’s on his ass on the ground and he’s completely lost it, they’ve all completely lost it.

“I’ve never seen you dance that hard in my life,” Kibum tells Jonghyun, clicking his tongue, fighting his own smile and losing badly. “Work out all your issues, hyung. Just don’t take them out on Taeminnie’s face, or I’ll take mine out on yours, got it?”

“Did I hurt you?” Jonghyun tries to say, taking him by the elbow, helping him up. Taemin’s useless, and he’s turning Jonghyun’s muscles to jelly too, making him laugh like this, so hard he can’t see straight. “Sorry, Taemin-ah, I didn’t mean to.”

Taemin thinks that’s funny, too.

For a while everything is. The next couple run throughs break down, they can’t go thirty seconds without someone cracking up. Next time they make it through a minute. Then two, two and half—

Jinki trips over himself, falls on his face. It all falls apart again. Kibum and Minho fall over each other, clutching their sides, gasping. Jonghyun thinks he’s going to make himself sick, laughing. And Taemin…

He’s the one who started it, but this time he’s all business, helping Jinki to his knees, patting his back, kneeling beside him.

It’s not funny to Taemin because it’s not funny to Jinki.

It’s not funny. 

“Do you need to take a break, hyung?”

Jinki shakes his head. “No, I’m okay.”

Jonghyun pushes past Taemin and hauls Jinki to his feet. Taemin stands too, pressed to his side, peering into Jinki’s face. “You don’t look like it?”

Jinki pulls at his collar, puffs his cheeks out, breathes. Tells Taemin, “I don’t need you to look after me. Worry about yourself.”

Taemin takes that in, and two seconds later he comes back with, “I’m really tired, I think I need a break~” giving Jonghyun the most obvious look in the world. Taemin means well, but he’s not helping, not at all, the set of Jinki’s shoulders says so. It’d be better if he were laughing at Jinki like Jonghyun and the other two, all the more because Jinki doesn’t have the breath to laugh at himself. That’s just how Jinki gets through it.

Maybe not.

“We’re at work right now. This isn’t gym class, we’re getting paid for this,” Jinki says out of nowhere, voice harsh, twisted up. He glares around at all of them. “So stop making it into a joke and fucking _work._ Okay?”

Okay.

Taemin had Jonghyun smiling so much it hurt, and he’d almost gotten Jonghyun to forget what a shitty day this is, but okay.

 

Jonghyun stays late in the practice room in the end. Minho and Kibum go off with Manager Hyung, and Jinki goes to cool off in the vocal room, but Taemin doesn’t give Jonghyun a choice. The day will keep on going with or without him, and it’s better to break his muscles down and sweat through his shirt again, than to face his bedroom ceiling, with no Taemin sleeping below him.

They turn the music on and go through the song again. And again. And again. Maybe an hour goes by before Jonghyun can’t take it anymore. So he slows Taemin down, fucks up on purpose, whines, asks him about stuff he could do in his sleep this morning. Stares at Taemin’s ass while Taemin tries to show him what he should be doing, until Taemin gives in, grabs Jonghyun and guides him through it, holding his wrist, kicking his feet into position, tugging at his hips, sending Jonghyun cold-hot with his touch.

And then finally Jonghyun has to say, “Taemin-ah, let’s take a break,” so he doesn’t try something desperate, like pulling Taemin in against him and kissing him stupid. “Please, have mercy.”

He has to wait for Taemin to return to planet earth, but in the end he listens to Jonghyun. They troop to the bathroom to splash water on their faces, buy themselves some pop and return to the practice room. Jonghyun would be okay never coming in here again for the rest of time, but Taemin’s with him. Dropping down on the floor next to him, rolling his sweatpants up to his knees and stretching his legs out, so long and pretty alongside Jonghyun’s. Smiling at Jonghyun, still glowing. And finally, saying to him, “Hyung.”

“Yeah, what?”

“I’m sorry we played your demos without asking,” Taemin says.

As soon as Taemin says it, Jonghyun wishes he’d take it back. He wishes he’d never made Taemin feel like he might have to.

“Don’t be,” he says as gently as he can. “I was in a bad mood, that’s all.”

“You haven’t been sleeping.” Taemin draws his legs up to his chest, rests his cheek on his knees, shoots Jonghyun a secret look. “You need to sleep.”

Makes Jonghyun smile.

“Aigoo. I won’t get out of bed on Monday, okay? I can last until then.” Jonghyun reaches out to tuck a strand of hair behind Taemin’s ear, and lets himself linger, stroking Taemin’s bangs, soft and damp with sweat, slipping through his fingers. Taemin leans into his touch, just a little, just enough for Jonghyun to catch himself, take his hand away. “Don’t worry about Jinki hyung, either.”

Taemin just looks at him.

“I made him feel stupid, right?” That’s not it, not really. And Jonghyun’s not sure it’d be any better if Taemin went down the hall to the vocal room and talked to Jinki himself, if it’s better that he’s here instead, scrunching his nose up at Jonghyun, and telling him, “I don’t get what I did that was so bad. If I’m having a hard time, he always helps me.”

“He waits for you to ask him, Taeminnie,” Jonghyun says patiently.

He and Taemin are only here like this now because of that one day Jonghyun admitted to Taemin he was going to fail his dance evals, and that night Taemin stayed after hours and slept on the practice room floor, just to teach him the steps. The dances have gotten a lot harder since their trainee days, but still.

Taemin always waits for Jonghyun to ask.

The only warning Jonghyun gets is Taemin’s mouth crooking, and before Jonghyun can do anything about it, Taemin turns on him. “You don’t, though?” As he says it Taemin’s face breaks into this smile, so bright it’s like staring into the sun. Jonghyun can’t even pretend to get mad when Taemin goes on, “You’re always all, ‘Taemin-ah, let me see.’ ‘Taemin-ah, give me that.’ ‘Taemin-ah, hyung will take care of it.’”

Jonghyun doesn’t even sound like that, not at all, but somehow his own voice comes out weird when he says, “Taemin-ah, stop it,” so he has to cover, pinching Taemin’s cheeks and biting back his own smile. Just until his blood stops bubbling and he gets used to the way his face burns, holding Taemin’s eyes. “I don’t need you to ask. I can always tell with you.”

Taemin goes still. “Then what am I thinking right now?”

“‘Jonghyun hyung is the best,’” Jonghyun says, beaming at him. When Taemin doesn’t laugh like he’s supposed to, he tries again. “‘Jonghyun hyung, buy me food?’”

Gets Taemin wrong again, makes his face fall. Before he can take it back, stop turning it into a joke, guess for real, Taemin comes out with it. “That’s why you looked into Moon Mikyung with me, right? You could tell I wanted to help, so you went along with it.”

Blindsides Jonghyun and knocks him off balance. He can’t figure out how to defend himself without lying to Taemin, maybe because it’s true. Taemin’s right about him. He always makes Jonghyun guess, and he always lets Jonghyun hurt him, and only ever lets him know he’s gone wrong once it’s too late to fix it...but Taemin is right.

He hates it, too. His brow furrows and his mouth tightens and he says, voice all twisted up, “That’s not how it works, hyung.” _It’s okay, it’s okay, hyung is sorry._ Jonghyun bites his tongue, but can’t stop himself from reaching for Taemin, and he has to let Taemin shrug him off. “If I’m being stupid, you can just tell me, you don’t have to pretend. Otherwise I’m just wasting your time, and I don’t want to do that. It just makes me stupider, and you’re back to where you were, before.”

Jihye.

“It’s not like that, Taeminnie,” Jonghyun says, quick as he can, quicker than he should. He should be coming up with a real answer to that, telling Taemin he called a friend to ask about her, apologizing for taking it out on the three of them, because whatever Taemin doesn’t know he’s guessed, and he needs to hear Jonghyun say it. Instead he’s taking Taemin, and running. “Maybe you don’t know it, but you do things for me all the time.”

Taemin gives him this look like, _Don’t lie to me._ And Jonghyun has to get his face under control, before it says something back, something crazy like _I don’t know what I’d do without you,_ or _It’s enough that you like me. You make me want to try to like myself._ Instead he presses his fingers into the corners of Taemin’s mouth and tells him, “Smile.” Taemin makes a face instead. “That’s cute, too.”

“I’m not a child,” Taemin says, almost catching Jonghyun’s fingertips in his mouth. He reaches up and tugs at Jonghyun’s wrists, makes him take his hands away. “You can ask me for more than that.” 

Jonghyun’s whole body goes hot. Taemin doesn’t even know what he’s doing to him, he doesn’t know anything. And if Jonghyun asked him for half the things in his head right now, he’s not sure what that would do to Taemin. If Taemin would ever look at him again, if he knew how Jonghyun looks at him. If he knew Jonghyun is looking at him right now, wondering what face he makes when he comes, imagining all the ways he wants to take Taemin there. In Jonghyun’s hand, in his mouth. On his dick.

Jonghyun drinks his pop.

And in the meantime, Taemin finds something else to say. “How long have you been writing that stuff, anyway? Since before we debuted, right?”

Jonghyun’s demos.

“Some of the lyrics are from then, the music is more recent.”

Taemin takes that in, then says to his knees, “Some of it’s about Kim Jihye, huh,” and just like that, they’re right back to where they were.

Jonghyun is fine going in circles with Taemin, but he doesn’t want to talk about it. Her. He’d rather confront Moon Mikyung again, get slapped down and shat on in front of Taemin again, let Taemin take her crap too, let Taemin waste his time, if that’s what Taemin thinks. Taemin can just bring her up again instead, get mad at Jonghyun all he wants, and Jonghyun will take it, and do everything he can to make it better. Even though he knows Taemin’s not mad because of Moon Mikyung, and Taemin went with her just now for the same reason Jonghyun went along with Taemin. It’s just easier to say her name out loud than Jihye’s.

_That’s why you stayed away from Kim Jihye, right? You could tell I didn’t want you to get hurt, so you went along with it._

Jonghyun doesn’t want to talk about it.

“She’s not the only girl I’ve dated, Taeminnie,” Jonghyun says, and that’s as far as he’ll go. “And who says they’re about anyone? Most of them aren’t.”

Taemin doesn’t come back at him with anything, and for the longest time he can’t break the silence settling between them, looking at Jonghyun, struggling with himself. Jonghyun can’t read in Taemin’s face the things Taemin won’t say, and if he tries to help Taemin might hate him. He can’t do anything for him and he can’t stop him, either. Taemin makes him wait.

And then, of all things, as if he’s making it into a joke, Taemin says, “None of them are about me, though, right?”

“Huh?”

That makes Taemin smile, as tight and painful as Jonghyun’s chest all of the sudden. “You’re always calling me beautiful and stuff, but I guess that’s all talk~”

Jonghyun doesn’t know where this is coming from. He’s not all talk. Taemin teases him, and plays with him, hurts him and makes mistakes all the time, but Jonghyun has never doubted for a second that Taemin means the good things he says about him. He’s never doubted that Taemin loves him. 

If it’s not the same for Taemin with him, this is the first Jonghyun has heard of it. This is the first time Taemin’s said _anything._ Jonghyun never knew.

All he knows is that to him, Taemin is beautiful. He was a fairy and an angel long before SM’s marketing team picked up on it, from the time Jonghyun first met him, from the time before he knew Jonghyun existed. And he’s beautiful right now, sweaty and stinky and tired under harsh white light, so beautiful Jonghyun can’t believe he gets to look at him like this, be with him like this, that he could reach out and touch him.

Like this.

Brushing his fingers across Taemin’s cheek, Jonghyun says, “They’re about me, which means they’re about you.”

Taemin looks away.

“That’s what you said about her. Kim Jihye,” he says, and that’s all. Jonghyun just gave him his whole heart, but that’s all. And then, “Hyung,” in a voice that’s probably supposed to sound normal. To anyone but Jonghyun, it would. “I was serious when I said I liked them. If you’re not okay showing them to us, even, how are you ever going to record them?” Taemin’s hand lands on Jonghyun’s head, solid and warm, ruffling his hair. “It’s your music. As long as you like it, that’s enough.”

“I’ve written a lot of other stuff that suits Shinee better.” That much is true. Jonghyun submitted lyrics to SM for one of the tracks on their upcoming EP, and they’ll probably okay them. But that’s not the point, either, and if Taemin wants honesty, “I don’t know if I want to show our fans that side of me. I’m not sure if I like it, myself.”

Before either of them can think, Taemin retorts, “Well, I like that side of you.” Jonghyun’s face burns, but Taemin’s the one who turns red. He won’t take it back, though. “I like everything about you.”

Jonghyun thinks he might be staring, he thinks he might have looked too long, he thinks he might go blind, looking at Taemin. He feels dizzy. “Careful, Taeminnie. Hyung will get a big head.”

Taemin takes that badly. Somehow that’s the worst thing Jonghyun’s said to him all night, somehow Taemin’s taking it the worst. He tries to hide it, too, head down, fingers clenched, breathing tight, and Jonghyun doesn’t even know what’s wrong, just that something is.

“You don’t think it means anything when I say it, do you?” Taemin says in a weird voice.

He’s still talking. Good, that’s good, that’s. “Are you mad at me, Taeminnie? It’s okay if you are,” Jonghyun says in a rush, and then he makes himself stop, makes himself think, makes himself be useful. “If it’s something I said, then it’s okay to tell me. But stop twisting everything I say into something bad.”

That gets nowhere, it just makes Jonghyun crazy. He reaches for Taemin, takes his face in his hands, lifts his head up, until they’re face-to-face, and Taemin has nowhere else to look but him.

Finally, finally, Taemin gives into him, and meets his eyes. And says, “I like you.”

“What?”

“I can’t like you?” Taemin trips over the words, they come so fast. Then switches to, “You don’t believe me?”

_What?_

“Don’t play with me,” is what Jonghyun thinks he gets out.

“I like you,” Taemin says over him, and Jonghyun can’t catch up, and he doesn’t know if this is real, if his whole body’s asleep or on fire, just that he can’t breathe, hands shaking so badly he has to take them away from Taemin’s face, but he can’t hide any of this from Taemin. And now Taemin is telling him, “I’ve liked you since I was thirteen. You said you know everything about me, but you don’t even know that much.”

Jonghyun believes him.

He wants to hear it again. He doesn’t understand. Taemin wouldn’t do this to him, if he didn’t mean it. He likes Jonghyun. This whole time, he’s liked him.

Jonghyun believes him.

And just like that Taemin fills him up to bursting, a thousand different Taemins he’s seeing only now, his first time with all of them. How shy Taemin was around him for years and years, even after they got close, how hard it was to get him to talk, make eye contact, how he only ever looked at Jonghyun when he thought he wouldn’t get caught. He still hides from Jonghyun, whenever it’s about him. The way Taemin used to get when Jonghyun touched him, the way he still gets sometimes, like it hurts, like it’s too much, like Jonghyun is too much. His blushes, his smiles, his silences. The things Taemin won’t say for himself no matter how many ways Jonghyun finds to ask him, and the things Taemin wants Jonghyun to hear, however much it costs him to get them out.

_I’ll just like you enough for both of us, if that’s how you’re going to be. He doesn’t need you to like him, he’s got me. I like everything about you. I like you._

_You don’t think it means anything when I say it, do you?_

Jonghyun didn’t know. He never knew. It’s Taemin, and he was right here, looking at Jonghyun while Jonghyun looked at other people, fell for other people, fucked other people, and then came home to him. Told him things he couldn’t tell anyone else, things Taemin never asked to hear, and expected his own happiness to be Taemin’s as well. He probably broke Taemin’s heart, little by little. He probably made him feel like nothing. Maybe he confused him, maybe he did a lot of things Taemin could hate him for. Maybe he should be hating himself, because Taemin won’t. But Taemin would hate him if he did.

Taemin likes him.

He’s trying so hard not to look away, trying so hard to let Jonghyun see everything he’s kept inside. If Jonghyun does the wrong thing, says the wrong thing, Taemin will get hurt.

“Taemin-ah…”

Jonghyun gets out of his own head, stops thinking of himself. Reaches out, and.

Taemin’s eyes widen, his face falls open, and when Jonghyun touches his cheek, Taemin doesn’t even feel it, he doesn’t even look. And then, out of nowhere, “I confessed to Jonghyun hyung just now.”

Jonghyun follows his eyes and everything inside him stops. Jinki. He’s standing in the doorway, shifting his weight, look on his face like he wants to die. And he says, “I know.”

Taemin struggles to his feet, knocking Jonghyun’s hand away, voice as loud and bright and fake as the fluorescent lights as he says, “I think I got rejected~”

“I know,” Jinki says again, so gently.

He doesn’t know. Neither does Taemin. Jonghyun has to say something, he has to do something, he has to fix this. Fix Taemin. But how can he, when Taemin won’t look at him. He’s too busy turning himself into a joke. Jonghyun could tell Taemin he loves him, and Taemin would think he’s making fun of him. He’d try to laugh it off.

“It’s okay if he doesn’t like me back,” Taemin goes on, and now he’s smiling too, forcing it, trying too hard, hurting himself more and more, tearing Jonghyun’s heart to shreds. “I’ll just like him by myself~”

Jinki pulls Taemin in, gives Jonghyun a long look, like he’s not sure whose side he should be taking, if there are sides even. Jonghyun knows he’s just trying to help when he says, “What’s wrong with our Taeminnie, what do you lack? Do you want hyung to hit him?” And he knows Jinki is making sure he’s okay when he peers down at him and says, “He looks like he got hit already.”

He’s not helping. Jonghyun’s not okay.

Finds his voice, finds the breath to say, “Did you think I’d laugh at you?” and he doesn’t want an answer. If Taemin says yes, Jonghyun doesn’t know what he’ll do, and maybe there’s nothing he can, and that’s worse, so much worse. “It wasn’t funny. It’s not funny.”

Jonghyun gets his legs under him. Aches and pains and cramps from a thousand years ago return with a vengeance, hit his body all at once. For a couple seconds he can’t move and everything hurts. Then his vision clears and he catches Taemin looking, sees his face, drawn with concern, and suddenly it’s less than nothing. Jonghyun can fucking take it.

“I’m sorry, hyung,” Taemin says in a painful rush. “Did I go too far, are you mad? I’m sorry, I was just being weird. Please don’t be mad, I’m sorry.”

“Taeminnie—”

“Is it time to go?” Taemin says, talking over him, turning away blindly.

Jinki says, “It’s eleven thirty already, didn’t you say you were going back to your parents’ today?” and that’s just the facts, that’s news from the real world.

Jonghyun won’t listen. “You go ahead, we’re not done, I’ll get Taeminnie home.” He has to get there in time, lurching forward, reaching out, “Taeminnie, come here,” taking Taemin by the arm, “Taeminnie,” gently, gently, pulling him back to his side. There. Now he just has to hang on.

All that does is make Taemin smile at him again, only this time, it’s for real. This time he means it with all his heart, and if he’s breaking it, he’s breaking Jonghyun’s, too.

“You’re the one who needed to stop, remember? If we start up again your legs will give out. You’re tired, hyung.”

Jonghyun can’t think of a single way to make Taemin stay that won’t hurt him, and in the end, he can’t stop him, either. The three of them go out into the dark together, and find the world white and new, snow crunching underfoot, lining tree branches, turned to slush in the gutters. It’s snowing still, soft and white and pretty, and all Jonghyun wants to do is find something to keep them out here, and watch it collect in Taemin’s hair.

He puts Taemin in a taxi, and watches until it’s out of sight. Then he turns to Jinki and says, “Drink with me,” so he’ll have an excuse to cry, if he needs one.

 

They end up at the same convenience store they always end up at. Jonghyun sits outside at the round plastic table and waits. It’s not long before Jinki returns, little paper cups and four bottles of soju. Jonghyun doesn’t ask, but Jinki smiles and says, “This should be enough to keep us warm.”

If that’s how he wants to think of it. Jonghyun likes the cold, but he doesn’t want to be alone.

“I don’t think that girl likes me,” Jinki says as he twists the first bottle’s top off. “The clerk, I mean. She acted like she was watching the snow, but she wouldn’t look me in the face.”

“She only has to deal with you at checkout, when would she have time to like you or not?”

“She cards me every time, too.”

She sold it to him, didn’t she?

As soon as Jinki pours Jonghyun a shot, he throws it back, and right away, Jinki is there with another. Jonghyun needs to be careful. He’s not drinking to get drunk, he’s drinking to have something to do with his hands. If he gets drunk he won’t be able to think.

He needs to think.

He gets nowhere, only as far as, “Hyung.” Jinki looks over at him, and waits for him, and refills Jonghyun’s cup. And finally Jonghyun says, “Taeminnie says he likes me.”

Jinki wasn’t there for that part. He only got there in time to help Taemin pretend he didn’t mean it.

“You don’t like him?”

Jonghyun does. He always has. More than anyone. Everything’s changed these past few weeks, and it all changed again, maybe an hour ago…but he doesn’t even know how long he’s been like this. Just that Taemin’s been like this longer. Since the beginning, Jonghyun’s tried as hard as he can to make Taemin like him, done everything he can to make Taemin smile, but now he knows there was a time he loved Taemin less. Taemin never cries, but Jonghyun’s probably made him.

Anyway.

It’s Jinki who’s with him right now, not Taemin. Somehow this is a conversation they’re having. “This isn’t weird to you at all? You’re not surprised?”

“Not really. Should I be?” Jinki doesn’t give it any thought. Maybe he doesn’t even need to, maybe Jonghyun’s the only one who didn’t realize. Maybe Jinki sees some of that in Jonghyun’s face, because he tries to explain. “Taeminnie’s told me some things.”

“He talks to you about me?” Jonghyun says, at a loss.

“Not exactly? It’s what he doesn’t say, too,” Jinki replies. Jonghyun wants to ask him what exactly Taemin’s said or not-said, drag everything Taemin hid from him out of Jinki, shake him until every last detail falls loose. But that’s crazy, and that’s not fair to either of them. As though he’s read his mind, Jinki tells him gently, “You’re not the only one watching over him. The difference is, you’re too close to see clearly. I’m not.”

Jonghyun’s throat closes up, and soju doesn’t do him any good. Just burns.

“He knows me better than I know myself. I didn’t even know his feelings,” he says. And then he makes himself move on, and lets himself go there. “I don’t know if I could make him happy.”

“Does he make you happy?”

So many goddamn questions, somebody has to tell Jinki that asking doesn’t count as answering, somebody has to make him make sense. But Jinki’s ready for it when Jonghyun reaches for him, knocking his hand away like nothing. Jonghyun can’t keep up with him. He’s already slowing down, getting clumsy, saying too much, feeling too much, and now his tears are gathering.

Shit.

He says, “If you wanna play dumb, drink up,” and his voice comes out all wrong, rough and scratchy. “You know what this life is like, hyung. What’s the longest you’ve lasted with someone, six months? A year?”

Jinki starts on the second bottle. “People break up, Jonghyunnie. It’s just something people do. There are a lot of reasons for it.”

“It’s all people like us do.”

“So...what? Dating is a crime?” Of all things Jinki laughs, and Jonghyun is so not in the mood. He’s not smiling, not this time, he doesn’t care if Jinki only said it so he would. Jinki doesn’t care, either, giving Jonghyun equal time with his soju. “Are you afraid of hurting Taeminnie, or are you afraid you’ll get hurt yourself?”

Neither. Both.

Another shot.

The moon is up there somewhere, behind the clouds. It’s probably lonely. There’s snow on Jonghyun’s face. Taemin would catch it on his tongue. 

“We won’t be able to go back,” Jonghyun says, and even that much is a struggle. This next thing is so much worse, but he has to get it out there, even if it’s head down, into his sleeve, tears he can’t even feel through his jacket. “It’s different if it’s just me. I don’t know what I’d do, if he stopped liking me. I don’t know if I could take it.”

Jinki thumps his back, warm and solid. He’s so fucking lame. “Would you rather wait for him to stop on his own? Nobody can wait forever, Jonghyunnie. Someday somebody else will come along, and you’ll just be hyung to him. If you don't think that counts as losing him, if you're more comfortable like that, just stay where you are.”

Jonghyun hates him.

“If I’m not there for him, I don’t know if he’ll be okay. Taeminnie needs me.” Deep, shuddering breath. “I can’t just do whatever I want, if it’s him. How could I? He won’t think of himself, he doesn’t know what he’s doing.” Another breath, and there’s more. “He told me he liked me and he thought I’d fucking _laugh_ at him,” and, “What if I fuck it up. I always fuck it up.”

“You just said you went years without knowing his feelings, and now you think you know how he’d take things that haven’t even happened. And he’s liked you this long already, but you don’t think he can handle you.” Jinki’s voice tells Jonghyun he needs to think harder. And then, loud and clear, “What are you so worried about? If things don’t work out with you, Taeminnie will still have me.”

Jonghyun hates him so much he needs to let Jinki know, levering himself up to glare at him, red eyes, tear tracks, snot, soju breath, he doesn’t care how gross he looks. Let Jinki see. He can shut up and drink. Third bottle now.

“Aigoo, I can’t even say that much? You don’t want my help with him?” Jinki says into his cup. “Sounds to me like you’re the one who needs him.”

Jonghyun didn’t even say anything. He never said. He’s never said.

He doesn’t try it now, even though it’s dark and cold and he doesn’t know what day it is, what time it is, and he’s pretty sure he’s drunk, and nobody but Jinki has to hear. All that stuff just makes it easier for him to lie to himself.

“It’s not about what I need.”

Jinki sighs.

“Jonghyun-ah…you can talk to me, I’m here for that, but please don’t make me do all the work. Either that, or try making sense.” He hooks a finger in Jonghyun’s cup and somehow it’s out of Jonghyun’s hands. When it comes back to him it’s full. “Lie to me all you want, but be honest with yourself, mm? Mm? Look inside here a little bit.” He pokes one finger into Jonghyun’s forehead. “Think about yourself, just a little. It won’t hurt.”

Jonghyun drinks.

 

Jonghyun’s first thought when he wakes up on Saturday is that he misses Taemin. He has his second over the toilet, puking his guts out. Manager Hyung is going to drag Jonghyun in to work like this, but it’s a school day for Taemin.

He won’t see him today.

He gets a text on the ride over to SM.

_jihye says she has time next saturday. 6 work for you?_

He needs time. He sits on it.

And on the way back to the dorm Jonghyun says it works fine.

He doesn’t wake up on Sunday, because he couldn’t sleep. He misses Taemin.

Still, he feels better.

On Monday, he turns twenty-three, and Taemin, twenty. He doesn’t know what this feeling is, if he’s so happy he’s sad, or what. If he really is a crazy person.

The person he likes likes him back. If he kissed Taemin, Taemin would want it. He’d kiss Jonghyun back. Hold on tight, make little noises, press closer, maybe stick his tongue in Jonghyun’s mouth. And when Jonghyun pulled away Taemin would take forever to open his eyes. And when he did, he’d smile.

What’s so hard about that. Why is it so hard for him to understand. Why is it so hard for him to do something about it.

Taemin isn’t here right now. He can’t do anything.

Jonghyun spends all day in bed like he said he would. He has no Taemin to feed, and there’s no Taemin to talk to, no Taemin to snatch at the corner of his blanket and steal it away from him, or climb up and try to crowd Jonghyun out of his own bed. No Taemin to make fun of him if he were to think any of this stuff out loud.

When night falls, Minho comes into the room and says loudly, “You want wasabi in yours, right~?” He doesn’t wait for Jonghyun to answer before he shouts down the hall, “A whole tube, he said~”

Jonghyun doesn’t know what they’re talking about, but he can’t not eat, and he doesn’t want wasabi in his anything. He gets up.

Turns out Kibum was feeling lazy this New Year, too. Usually he spends the afternoon on rice cake soup, seasoning it with complaints and curses, but this time he’s waiting for Jonghyun with a bowl of tteokbokki and _History of the Salaryman_ on the television.

“What? They’re rice cakes, aren’t they?” he snaps when he sees the look on Jonghyun’s face.

Minho and Jinki make room for him on the couch without putting up a fight, so Jonghyun takes it. Sits. Stuffs his face. Lets them do the talking. Gets bored of that after about five minutes.

Kibum makes a face at him, has another guess.

“Aigoo, you don’t have to watch. Play with your phone or whatever, I don’t care. Just don’t put your headphones in, or you’ll miss my OST~”

Jonghyun makes a mistake and texts Taemin.

_what r u doing_

A minute passes, and he regrets it. Two minutes, and his hands are sweating. Three, and he thinks his heart might pound out his chest. Five, ten, and it sinks down into his stomach, and he wishes he hadn’t eaten that tteokbokki. It’s making him sick. And then…nothing. It’s not that Taemin’s ignoring him. He never answers.

Jonghyun eats more. Laughs at Jinki’s jokes, no matter how stupid. Asks Kibum why Lee Beomsoo’s name in the drama is Yoo Bang, if he should take that to mean Lee Beomsoo is a boob man or what, and takes a pillow to the face. Lets Manager Hyung use his college degree to talk his ear off about allegory and _The Romance of the Three Kingdoms._ Tries to squish Minho into the armrest, and ends up getting squished into Jinki. And then he does it to himself again.

_theyre torturing me_

_minho isnt cute like u. hurry up and come back~_

_taeminnie~~_

_dont u even feel sorry for me_

…

_i miss u_

He deletes it three times. Writes it four. It takes him fifteen minutes to hit send, and then he has to go back to bed to wait this one out.

Nothing. Nothing nothing nothing. Nothing.

Taemin’s the one who said he liked Jonghyun, but he’s not thinking of him at all. Jonghyun couldn’t sleep all day, and he won’t be able to sleep tonight. It’s only been three days, and maybe this will be the one where he breaks down and cries. He didn’t do anything wrong. Taemin didn’t give him any time to find the right answer. If Taemin knew he was hurting like this, maybe he’d come back to Jonghyun. He wouldn’t understand, and he wouldn’t know what to do with Jonghyun, and he might laugh at how stupid he’s being, but he’d come.

There’s a knock on the door.

“You okay, Jonghyunnie?”

Manager Hyung.

“Just tired.” Jonghyun sits up in time to see Manager Hyung edging back out the door. He doesn’t really want to talk, but maybe that would be better. “What is it, hyung?”

“Mikyungie just texted me. She wants to talk.”

…What? Moon Mikyung? Now?

Manager Hyung’s watching his face so carefully. “If you don’t want to go, it’s okay. I could always go by my—”

“Did she say when?”

“Early tomorrow morning, after her shift at that restaurant you guys went to. We should have enough time, your first schedule is at seven.”

Jonghyun makes himself wait this time, until his breathing clears and his heart slows. He only lets himself say one thing.

_moon mikyung. 5 am tmrw. take responsibility_

He waits. Counts his heartbeats. Buries his face in his pillow. Lets this strange flying-falling feeling split him two, tear him up inside, and breathes through it. And then it happens. His phone buzzes to life in his hand. One moment where he thinks he might choke on his heart, hunt down whatever bastard decided to play with him if that’s how it is, but it’s okay. It’s okay. It’s Taemin.

_u know where to pick me up rt_

No one’s here to see, so he lets it all out. Hugs his phone to his chest, rolls around, grinning like crazy, kicking his legs uselessly, tasting Taemin’s name in his mouth. Checks again and again and again.

Taemin. Taemin Taemin Taemin. Taemin.

He has to sleep. He can’t. He has to.

Once he stops smiling, maybe.

 

The wait was an eternity, but when they pick Taemin up outside his parents’ building, it’s like it’s been no time at all. One look, and Jonghyun is back on planet earth.

Taemin’s still waking up, and as soon as he gets in the van, he gives up on that. There’s no point telling him good morning, or anything. Before Jonghyun can think of the next thing, Taemin nods off on his shoulder. He’s soft and warm and solid, relaxing slowly, slowly into Jonghyun’s side, and Jonghyun’s whole being settles. He thinks he could get by not looking, he thinks this is enough.

He looks and looks. Maybe Taemin can feel his eyes, maybe he can’t. Jonghyun doesn’t care if he does.

He wants him to.

“Did you gain some weight, Taeminnie?” Manager Hyung says, peering back at him, not even hiding his smile. “Must be nice, eating your mom’s cooking for a change~”

Taemin doesn’t open his eyes. “She’s already packing stuff up for me to bring back.”

“Did you have dumplings for New Year?” Jonghyun says, trying not to sound as careful as he feels.

“Rice cake soup. You?”

“Tteokbokki.”

Taemin makes a face, just for Jonghyun to see.

That’s all.

It’s enough.

Taemin is okay.

 

Jonghyun doesn’t really care if Moon Mikyung is or not, but she looks like a different person in her own clothes. Her face has changed, too. Jonghyun’s not sure if it’s just that this homey little coffee shop is across the street and a world away from the restaurant where she works, or if she’s just tired.

But it doesn’t matter. Once they’ve sat down and ordered, she does a 180.

“I did it,” she tells them. “I spread the rumors.”

They were all thinking it, and now she’s saying it, but Manager Hyung starts badly, nearly spills his coffee, knee bumping Jonghyun’s under the table. “What?” Thunderstruck face, mouth working, eyes widening, then narrowing. “Mikyung-ah—”

But she silences him with one look, and turns to Jonghyun and Taemin. “I was wrong about you, but you were right about me.”

“What about the photos?” Jonghyun says, first thing, before it hits him maybe. “Was that you?”

She shakes her head, she’s shaking her head. This won’t end today, and it doesn’t end with her.

“That’s the only reason I’m here. I have something you need to see.”

She leans down to rummage in her bag, gives them a few seconds to process what she’s just admitted to, prepare themselves for whatever’s coming next. Jonghyun thinks the wait will eat him alive, but then she straightens, puts the thing her hand on the table, pushes it towards him, and it’s nothing he hasn’t seen before. It’s the same photograph he showed her last week, except Manager Hyung hasn’t had the chance to rip it up yet. And then she flips it over, and there’s more.

Turns out blacking his eyes out isn’t all sharpie is good for. Scrawled on the back is a web address that belongs to one of their fansites, and three other things:

_Jihye89_

_19890622_

_Looks are everything, and the truth is ugly._

Jonghyun’s not going to bother with that last thing, because who cares. The username’s nothing new, but the password isn’t either, not to him. It’s Jihye’s birthday.

But it’s not Jihye’s handwriting. That’s why Jonghyun’s still got air in his lungs, and thoughts in his head, and his ears are working when Moon Mikyung says, “Someone mailed this to me in December.”

She eyes him like she’s trying to read his face, figure out where this is going. As if he’d know. He’s not responsible for this. He’s in the photo, but whoever sent it to her, he didn’t fucking make them do it.

It still goes back to him. It’s still his problem. 

Jonghyun folds his fingers around the photo, slips it into his pocket, out of sight. Out of mind is harder. He drinks his coffee, waits for it to eat at his stomach, so he can just let himself feel sick. And then he lets himself have Taemin. Finds his hand under the table, so soft and small and warm, and holds it tight, so tight he’s probably crushing it, it probably hurts, he should probably let go. Taemin’s eyes shoot to his face, but he doesn’t say anything, doesn’t move. Doesn’t look away.

That’s enough. Manager Hyung gives up watching Jonghyun to see if he’s okay, and turns back to her. “And you don’t know who?”

Again, she shakes her head. Jonghyun wants to ask if there’s anything she does know, tell her that there’s no point going to Yonsei if she doesn’t use her brain for the important stuff, but that’s just him, he’s the one being stupid. It’s his photo, his life, not hers.

“At first I thought it was a joke, but when I looked into it, the account was real. And every time I thought I was crazy, and checked again, it was right where I left it. Whoever set it up stopped posting the day I got that photo, but their history went back months, and they had a ton of followers. And then one time I wrote a comment, just because, just to see, and people actually cared what I said. That was a first.”

Jonghyun’s okay skipping this part, and he doesn’t care if he has to push her. “It got to your head pretty fast.”

“Did you read any of the stuff they posted?” Manager Hyung asks, ignoring him. “The original Jihye89, I mean.”

“It was just the usual. Fangirling, stanning, whatever. I started out just to push back from that a little, just to get the other users to think a little, but they got to me more than I got to them. So I went nuclear.”

“We don’t need to hear about it,” Taemin says, as though he’s read Jonghyun’s mind. “If you’re sorry, just say so.”

“I am, okay? I am sorry, I’m sorry I wrote those things,” she says, and she could say it fifty times, and Jonghyun’s not sure it’d get any easier to buy it. It figures she sucks at apologizing. She doesn’t seem like the type who’d get much practice. And sure enough, the next thing out of her mouth is, “But they weren’t lies, you should know that better than me.”

She takes a deep breath, and fixes Manager Hyung with a glare.

“My sister and I shared a room before she married, back when she was dating you.” 

Manager Hyung looks so caught out Jonghyun would pity him, if he had room for anything but white noise inside.

“She’d get ready to go out on weekends, half her closet would be on our floor, she’d steal my things too. And then her phone would ring, and it’d be you. You were busy. Something came up. Or it’d be a weeknight, after work. She’d wait up, finally you’d call, and it’d be Shinee this, Shinee that. Like you had nothing else to say, nothing else to talk about. I couldn’t avoid hearing any of it, I was right there. And I didn’t get to ignore her, either. She’d be sweet to you and then she’d get off the phone and take your shit out on me.” Suddenly she smiles, and this time it doesn’t set Jonghyun’s teeth on edge. And she means it when she says, “Unnie really liked you, you know. She would have married you.”

“I liked her, too,” is all Manager Hyung can say to that.

Maybe she expected more than that from him, because right away she’s saying, “You had your own problems, I get it,” making a face like the words taste sour. She waits it out, for as long as it takes her and Jonghyun both to realize it won’t go away on its own. Sigh like an explosion, and she turns to him again. “I have mine, too. I’m taking next semester off. Well. It’s more like, I can’t afford to stay in school? I’d just lost my scholarship when I got the photo, but all I needed was a reason. I went crazy, hating you guys for having an easier time than me. But you were there for that part.”

She means the rumors, and maybe their first meeting too. It’s not an excuse, it’s another apology, further than ever from all the right things to say, but closer to the real thing. Jonghyun can’t hate her for it.

“If you need another job, I could ask around,” Manager Hyung offers.

She cuts him off there. “I don’t want to owe you, and you don’t owe me. My sister’s fine now. Better than fine. This guy makes more and works less, and treats her well. Honestly, he’s too good for her.”

Manager Hyung smiles too. “She deserves someone like that.”

And then Manager Hyung’s done, he’s back on his coffee. It’s down to her and Taemin and Jonghyun again, and Jonghyun doesn’t know what to do about it. He’s done with her too. She’s sorry, and he never came looking for her to hear about the rumors anyway. He was just running away.

“Earlier, you said you were wrong about us,” Jonghyun says at last. You can’t chug coffee, and life doesn’t fade to black, and he’s having a harder time with silence. “What changed your mind?”

When she says, “I tried your music,” he’s not sure if that’s her reply, or what. If that’s it, that’s all it took to turn her around on idols. Just listening to them, for once. He doesn’t really care, either, when she goes on, “You mentioned you were practicing a lot. When’s your next comeback over here? I don’t speak Japanese.”

She’s really trying here.

“In March.” Jonghyun makes himself smile. “‘Sherlock.’”

She takes that, and says in return, “You guys have to do well,” smiling back, tight and awkward, but sincere. She turns her eyes on Taemin. “If you don’t, then I’m allowed to give up too.”

“What, you’re saying you’re our fan now?”

“Taemin-ssi’s at least. I did some Youtubing and saw another side of him,” she says, and then she’s done with Jonghyun, trying to catch Taemin’s eye, face softening. “I’ve never seen a person move like that, I don’t know how hard you must work to make dancing look so easy.” Finally Taemin looks up at her, meets her eyes, and all of the sudden she grows shy, staring into her coffee instead, face too pink, voice too light. “I’m trying to learn the steps to ‘Lucifer’ but I think my heart will give out before I do.”

Jonghyun gets a hand on Taemin, playing with the hair at his nape, and he already likes her ten times better than he did a couple seconds ago. Taemin does these things to people, it’s nobody’s fault but his own. Moon Mikyung can’t help it any more than Jonghyun can.

Taemin doesn’t give a shit. “Start with something slower then,” he says shortly. Jonghyun pinches his cheek, a little harder, and a little harder, until he brings a smile to Taemin’s face, makes him try again. “‘Replay’ would be good.”

“You looked really cool that day, too. And you’re cuter in person,” she says in a rush, and Jonghyun’s only just realizing she was being careful with her words up till now, now that she’s saying whatever she wants. “I’ll have to save up to go see you guys sometime.”

But that’s all. They finish their coffee and step out into the early morning quiet. The moon smiles and the stars wink, and in an hour the sun will rise. Her day is ending, theirs is just beginning, and things could be a lot worse than they are.

Jonghyun finds himself asking her, “Do you need a ride home?”

“It’s too far out of your way, I live in Sinnae-dong. And I like my train ride.”

Jonghyun leaves it there, and stands shoulder-to-shoulder with Taemin while she says goodbye to Manager Hyung. That takes all of two seconds. All she has for him is, “Could you say hello to Jinmyung unnie for me? I’ll tell Sokyung unnie for you.”

And in return he says, “You have my number, if you need anything.”

As soon as it’s just the three of them again, pulling out into the empty predawn street, Taemin says, “How does she know Scary Noona? She was all over Sokyung noona-ssi’s SNS, too,” and Jonghyun skips making fun of him for his mistake, craning back to see the last of Moon Mikyung.

He almost skips Manager Hyung’s answer as well, “ _Jinmyung_ -ssi and Sokyung-ssi go way back,” but then Manager Hyung’s eyes find his eyes in the mirror, and he says, “Who’s Jihye?”

Maybe he caught it as far back as the first time, when he showed Jonghyun that screenshot, started all this. He’s only asking now because he has to.

“His ex-girlfriend,” Taemin says, before Jonghyun can say anything. He’s not looking at Jonghyun, either, and Jonghyun can’t seem to make him, staring and staring.

Manager Hyung probably figured as much. “And this person sending the photos knows her somehow? That account was set up to look like hers, were they setting her up?”

There’s no way Jonghyun could answer the second question, but the first is simple. All he has to say is, “I don’t know, I’d have to ask her. It’s been years,” and he’s not sure who he’s talking to, even, Manager Hyung, or Taemin.

“Well, it’s either that, or they know you, and they were setting _you_ up. Or something.”

He’s rambling. Jonghyun keeps his eyes on Taemin, until finally, suddenly, Taemin gives in, stops hiding from him. When he says, “You need to tell her,” Jonghyun knows it’s only because someone has to. It’s the last thing Taemin feels like saying, it’s all right there on his face. And it’s the last thing Jonghyun feels like hearing, and he hopes Taemin can see that in his. But Taemin’s not finished with him until he’s said, “You said it yourself, hyung. If it’s about you then it’s about her,” and the second that’s out of him, he returns to the city scrolling by.

Jonghyun wants to grab Taemin’s chin and turn him back around. He wants to take his hand again, now that he has no excuse. He wants to lay his head in Taemin’s lap and pretend to sleep until Taemin thinks it’s safe, and checks on him. If Manager Hyung weren’t here, watching him instead of the road, there’d be nothing stopping Jonghyun. It’s taking all he’s got to keep his mouth shut.

_I was going to see her anyway, and now I know what to say. You don’t want me to get hurt, so come with me. Make sure I don’t. It doesn’t have to be me. If you don’t want me meeting her then Manager Hyung can tell her._

_I’ll be fine. You’ll be waiting for me._

“I have to tell the company about this, too,” Manager Hyung goes on, and Jonghyun’s not sure if he’s talking to himself, or if he’s asking how much he can get away with not saying.

“Leave Mikyung-ssi out of it, hyung,” Jonghyun says. “It’s okay to lie to them once in a while. They lie to us all the time.”

Either he got it wrong, or Manager Hyung’s ashamed he thought of himself for a second there, because right away he comes back at Jonghyun with, “This isn’t about them, it’s about you,” and, “This is worse than we thought, this means someone’s trying to get to you, or something.”

His words hit Taemin harder than Jonghyun. Taemin’s whole body jerks, and Jonghyun catches Taemin out the second he sneaks a glance at him, smoothing Taemin’s brow with his thumb and trying a smile on him. Time doesn’t stop for him to make it better, though, and Manager Hyung goes on and makes it worse.

“Jonghyun-ah. It’s just, you’ve dated a lot of people. I would know. Out of all of them, why her, why Kim Jihye?”

Jihye was his first love, his first kiss, his first time, and when he was with her it had felt like she’d be his last, too. She was the only girl he got to date out in the open. They held hands in the street. They made out in the stairwell at school. She’d come to see him at the training center, and there was no one around to care if she stole Jonghyun oppa away. When he dated her, he had nothing, and when she dumped him, she told him his life was going nowhere. She was his first heartbreak, the worst one.

But that was a long time ago, and he’s not sending those photos to himself. None of those things would mean anything to anyone else but Jonghyun, and right now, looking at Taemin, they’re less than nothing to him. Taemin is everything. And maybe Jonghyun’s not crazy after all, maybe he’s just really, really stupid, because it’s been this way forever, Taemin’s been right here forever, and it’s taken Jonghyun so long to catch up.

And again, before Jonghyun can answer for himself, Taemin is there.

“Does that matter right now? If it’s her, then it’s her. Asking why won’t change that.” Taemin turns away, hunching in against his window again, closing his eyes, but he doesn’t leave Jonghyun behind. He stays with him long enough to say, “Don’t think too much, hyung. You’ll make yourself crazy, you always do.”

Most of the things Taemin says make no sense, or they’re things he says just because they’re true, just because he feels like it, just because. But every once in a while Taemin finds the words for things Jonghyun himself should have said or thought or done a long time ago, things Jonghyun only realizes once Taemin makes it obvious. This time it hits Jonghyun like a thunderbolt, and leaves him with this strange aching feeling deep inside.

_I love you. I’m yours. Please, Taemin-ah. Take me in. Love me back._

_Look only at me._

“Are you going back to your parents’ again tonight?” Jonghyun says.

Manager Hyung saves Taemin from answering. “You’re okay for the rest of the week, as long as you get yourself to practice on time. Your recording dates pick up again next Monday.”

Taemin doesn’t need to think about it. “I’ll come back on Saturday night.”

Jonghyun was going to meet Jihye that evening. Another coffee shop, another girl he doesn’t want to see, another photo of himself he’d rather not show anyone. And now, another day where he gets to come home to Taemin.

_Wait for me, just a little longer._

 

Her hair is a little longer, maybe, and dyed a darker shade of brown. She has glasses now. She’s wearing less make up than she used to, and the manicured hands folded around her coffee look nothing like the ones she touched him with, bumble bees and ladybugs for fingernails.

Jonghyun’s first thought is that she looks the same.

“It’s been a long time,” Jihye says, before it’s too late to say anything at all, before the silence gets too hard to break. She smiles at him, and it lights her face up just like it used to. “What, four years?”

“Five.”

“I don’t have to ask how you’ve been living. Not everyone gets to see their ex everywhere they go.”

Jonghyun used to see her too, in girls he passed on the street, girls he saw on TV, the girls he dated after her, the ones who broke his friends’ hearts. For the longest time, she blinded him to everything else. And suddenly it’s like that all happened to someone else, now that she’s right in front of him again, breathing the same air, narrowing her eyes like she’s trying to read his mind, laughing at him like it’s too much work.

“A lot of girls I know are hardcore Shawols. Guys, too.” He doesn’t have to ask if she is. Jihye was too edgy for pop music, she always had to like things before anybody else did. Him, for example. “And I can still remember this one time. I got together with some friends for chimaek, and you guys were on the box. College friends, so they didn’t know, but still. Life is funny.”

It’s easier for him to meet her eyes than he thought it would be.

“You were betting you’d never see me again, right? When you broke it off with me.” She gives him that look that says he’s pushing it. Whenever he wouldn’t call her noona, or picked a fight, or let his hands wander, that’s what he’d get. That’s all he’d get. This time it doesn’t do bad things to him or make him crazy, or anything at all. He just remembers. “I’m not blaming you, I’m just saying.”

“Jonghyun-ah,” she begins, and stops short, years rising up like a wall between them. “I agreed to meet with you.”

She did. That’s all that really matters.

So Jonghyun finds it in himself to say, “I won’t make you ask why I wanted to see you. Don’t make me ask why you’re here,” and moves on. Shows her.

As he slides it across the table, the photo looks no better upside down, and once she realizes what she’s seeing, it looks even worse. It’s so bad it’s funny when her eyes dart up like she’s checking to see if his are still there, and she says, “What the fuck?”

Once he’s got control of his face again, he says, “That’s normal for antis,” and flips it over, so she can see her own name instead. “This isn’t.” He gives her as much time to process as he can, maybe more than she needs. But she doesn’t say anything, and she doesn’t look up, hair falling into her face, and that’s so unlike her he can’t take it. “Have you ever met a girl named Moon Mikyung? She’s a student here.”

That gets him a reaction. She rolls her eyes and says, “This is a big school, there are thousands of us,” and then the real one, pushing the photo back across the table with two fingers like it’s too gross to touch, “I don’t understand. Why are they involving me, why am I involved?”

In his shit, she means.

Jonghyun tries to keep the bitter taste in his mouth out of his voice as he says, “If I knew I would’ve started with that.”

“I don’t know any Moon Mikyung. Does she have something to do with this, does she know me? Because I think I’d remember someone who was this much of a creep.”

“Someone sent it to her, is all. She’s got nothing to do with it,” he says. “I just thought, if there’s some connection between you…never mind. I don’t know anything, it was stupid to ask.”

“This isn’t about me, don’t try to make it about me. It’s about you,” she snaps, turning the photo over again so that his ruined face stares up at them. He looks up in time to see her mouth curve into a smile, hard and brittle, too-bright. “I’ve never told anyone here I dated Shinee’s Jonghyun, I never bragged that I was his first love. Kinda hard to believe, isn’t it~? But then, people would have had a harder time believing me.”

She’s not taking it out on him, she’s just no good at keeping things in. And even if she were, there’s nothing Jonghyun could say, when it’s his fault. If she had turned him down, if he had never asked her out, if she had been running five minutes late and missed the train that morning he kissed her, they wouldn’t be here right now. He wouldn’t have to feel bad for scaring her like this, and she wouldn’t have to try so hard to act cool. Maybe there’d be a different name on the photo. Maybe there’d be no photo.

She always made him so stupid, but this time he’s doing it to himself. Everything that comes into his head is useless, this moment is never going to end if he keeps this up.

“Jihye.” She stops to breathe, and in the meantime, he wastes time trying to figure out how to get her to listen to this next thing. “I’m guessing they put your name out there just to get to me. They probably did.” When he tries to catch her eye she stares him down, but she’s not going to shut him up. She has to listen. “That won’t matter, if this escalates. There’s always the chance that it could. If they know who you are, that means they can hurt you.”

Her smile twists, then slowly, slowly fades, and somehow all she has to say to any of that is, “I still get to you?”

She’s always said the wrong thing. She’s never listened, not to him.

“I don’t want anything to happen to you because of me.”

Jonghyun thinks that’s as much of an answer as he’ll give her, but all it takes is two seconds, and he thinks again, thinks some more. Makes her wait. Years ago he would have moved heaven and earth to have her hanging onto his words like this, but now he just wants it over with. He has to get everything right, so there won’t be a next time, so he’ll never be here again, under her eyes.

It doesn’t cost him anything when he smiles at her. “Then I’d have to remember you, just to live with myself.” He’s not sure what comes first, his smile widening enough to hurt, or the face Taemin would make, if he thought Jonghyun was trying to act cool just now. “There’s someone who needs me. You’d get in the way.”

“Do you hate me?” she says, like she missed the things he didn’t say, like she doesn’t care about that part, like it’s got nothing to do with her. She wrinkles her nose. “I was okay being friends, but we’re only talking now because of this thing. You must resent me a lot.”

And suddenly Jonghyun wants out with his whole body. Suddenly he’s back on planet earth, and Taemin is on the other side of Seoul, probably playing video games instead of studying. “Did you hear anything I just said?” he says, instead of telling her what she wants to hear. That he hates her. Instead of telling her the truth. That he doesn’t. “I’m telling you you could be in danger.”

“What’s the big deal? If someone tries something, I’ll call the police. Campus security’s no joke, either, assemblymen send their kids here. I don’t need you to save me, so don’t worry.” She pauses, like she’s not sure she should go on, and all he has to do is wait, because she never thinks better of anything. “Look…I’m not saying I won’t be careful, but I don’t have your life, either. If someone’s stalking me, I’ll be able to tell, I’ll know something’s wrong. People don’t normally follow me around, you know.”

He knows. He’s only four years into this life, and he didn’t grow up like this, the way Taemin did. But it’s not about him. She’s telling him she’s done talking about it. Giving him an out, too.

“I guess things have changed,” he says, and it surprises him, how easy it is to keep his voice light. “You were the most popular girl in our school. When you said yes to me you had guys lining up to date you.”

_After, too._

And again, it’s easy, so easy, to eat those words. To forget them, too.

She knows what he’s thinking anyway, and tries a smile on him, a real one, the one that made him like her in the first place. “I know, but what can I do? I was off the market when I got here,” she says, and then, “Jonghyun-ah,” his name catching in her throat. She clears it and goes on. “It’s not up to me whether you forgive me or not. I moved on a long time ago.”

That’s so like her Jonghyun almost laughs. Obvious. Selfish. Honest. There are a lot of different ways to look at her, but she’s never pretended to be anything else. She broke up with Jonghyun with three words: _I like him._ When he tried to get her back, it was more of the same. He could never get her to say anything any closer to what he wanted to hear, any easier for him to accept, any less painful. She wouldn’t let him back in or give him any hope, and she probably never gave him another thought. Eventually he couldn’t take it anymore, and chose silence instead.

She’s not waiting for his answer now, either. She’s just waiting for him to say something, because it’s his turn.

“I never asked you to say sorry,” he says, for himself. And all of the sudden this is so important, he’ll have the rest of his life to regret it if he doesn’t get it out. “I don’t need to hear it if you are, not anymore.” He wrinkles his nose, takes a deep breath, and smiles, and catches her eye, so she knows he’s joking when he adds, “You always were a shitty liar anyway.”

Jihye laughs out loud.

“I should’ve held onto you, I should’ve held out. I thought I’d get stuck supporting you, and now I’ll be lucky to make half what you do. I’ll go broke paying off my loans,” she says, taking it a little too far, but that’s okay, he’s okay. “You told me you wanted to make a living writing songs, but now look at you.”

He doesn’t tell her things would’ve probably gotten worse between them after he debuted, not better, or that he’s not rich, he only started making money in the last two years, or that he still writes songs nobody will ever hear. “What about you, what’s your major?”

“Engineering.”

He would have guessed art. She used to draw all the time.

“You’ll end up ahead of me. My looks won’t last forever.”

She says something else, asks him something else, and he responds in kind. Back and forth, back and forth, until they’re out of things to say to each other. It lasts maybe five minutes, maybe ten. They both know that the only thing left is goodbye, and they’re both just wasting time while they figure out how to say it.

Right as he decides there’s no better way but to get it over with, she goes off script one last time, and says, “How’s Taeminnie?”

If she sees Jonghyun everywhere, she sees Taemin, too. As soon as he hears Taemin’s name, though, it’s too late. Jonghyun’s already smiling, and he already has a million things he could say, and a million things he can’t.

“He’s still the same,” he says finally, truthfully. Taemin’s never changed, only Jonghyun has. He’s always been right there, too, waiting for Jonghyun. In all the years Jonghyun loved him less, Taemin never once hated him for it. He never stopped smiling at Jonghyun. “He’s doing well. He’s happy.”

She returns his smile, and that’s how he catches himself at it. “It was so cute, the way he used to follow you around. He was so cute.”

“I followed him around.” Jonghyun says it quicker than he can think. But he doesn’t need to, he would’ve said it anyway. It’s true. “And he gets cuter every day.”

“Aigoo, you’re cute, too,” she says, and reaches across the table to pinch his cheeks, there and gone before either of them can think twice.

She’s spent this whole conversation as her own woman, his ex-girlfriend, a stranger even, but now they’ve come full circle. For the first time since he first kissed her, he’s back talking to Jihye noona. It’s not a bad feeling. And it’s not bad, either, what she leaves him with.

“If he likes you, you’ll just like him more, is that it?”

 

It’s only ten thirty, but the dorm is dark when Jonghyun gets back. It gets like this before promotions, everyone catching up on all the sleep they know they’re going to lose. All that means is there’s no one around to see the smile that splits his face when he stumbles over Taemin’s shoes in the entryway, and there’s no one around to make fun of him when he takes a moment, leaning against the wall, letting his heart race ahead of him.

He’ll see Taemin in the morning. He’ll get him alone, somehow. He’ll tell Taemin everything inside him, he won’t hold anything back. Somehow. And that’s as far as Jonghyun can go on his own. The rest is up to Taemin.

Tomorrow.

Except, Taemin is here now. Jonghyun sees him on his way past the kitchen, slumped over at the table, head on his arm, sound asleep. He’s alone, too, until Jonghyun comes in and sits beside him. Brushes Taemin’s hair out of his face. Lays his head down so they’re face-to-face. And it’s like the breath hits Jonghyun’s body again. For the first time all day, he can breathe.

That’s all for a while.

He wants to think time stops, but he knows it hasn’t, he’s glad that it hasn’t, when Taemin’s eyelids flicker, his face scrunches up, and he opens his eyes, just enough to see. And he mumbles, soft and sleepy, “Hyung?”

Today.

“Mm.” Jonghyun only realizes he’s smiling, watching the corners of Taemin’s mouth crook up. “You couldn’t make it to bed?”

Taemin pushes himself upright, so Jonghyun does the same. Taemin wipes his drool with his sleeve, so Jonghyun gets the sleep out of his eyes.

“Are you hungry?” Taemin says.

“Mm.”

Taemin makes three trips to get all his mom’s banchan out of the refrigerator. Jonghyun isn’t that hungry, he doesn’t need this much, he won’t be able to eat it. He fetches some chopsticks and watches Taemin sit down, one leg folded under him, toes peeking out under his thigh, so he can take the chair next to him. Keeps quiet when Taemin forgets to bring him rice, but he tries some of everything under Taemin’s watchful eyes, mmming with each mouthful. Even though he can’t taste any of it, and he can barely chew he’s smiling so hard, and his feelings are so big he doesn’t know how he’s getting anything down, where he’s supposed to find room for food.

“Taemin-ah.”

“Yeah?”

It’s not hard to find the words, but it takes everything Jonghyun’s got to keep his eyes on Taemin’s, and tell him, “Thank you.”

“What for?” Taemin says, making a face. Of all things.

“I don’t know.” For feeding Jonghyun. For waiting up. For not making him talk about it. “For everything.”

When Jonghyun reaches out and touches Taemin’s cheek, he scrunches his face up, like he’s expecting Jonghyun to pinch it. And Jonghyun could, but instead he brushes his knuckles across it, fits his palm against it, sliding his fingers into Taemin’s hair.

Brings a smile to Taemin’s face, shy and painful. “Eat, hyung.”

How can he, when Taemin’s filling him up like this. Jonghyun thinks he could look at Taemin forever, until he bursts at least.

“I have something for you,” he says instead, letting Taemin go to fish his phone out of his pocket. He uses the time it takes to uncoil his headphones to figure out how to say it, but he still opens his mouth thinking his heart might come out. “Don’t say anything this time, good or bad. Just listen, okay?”

He doesn’t even wait for Taemin to nod, but he doesn’t need to. Taemin leans in, lets Jonghyun put his earbuds in for him, lets Jonghyun take however long, picking the first demo. Jonghyun doesn’t need time. He presses play without looking, and presses the phone into Taemin’s hand.

Taemin takes it.

Jonghyun eats some more, just to have something to do, just so he doesn’t feel like he’s waiting. He lasts a minute out in the cold, and then he snatches his first glance at Taemin’s face, terrified for himself, greedy for Taemin, and Taemin catches his eye right away, bopping his head, half-smiling. And just like that, Jonghyun is okay. Taemin made it okay. He can watch.

And now he can’t tear his eyes away. Taemin is so beautiful, and in this moment, he’s all Jonghyun’s. He smiles so that Jonghyun will see, pushes his toes into Jonghyun’s thigh so Jonghyun will feel it, hums along so that Jonghyun will hear, keeps his eyes down, fiddling with Jonghyun’s phone, so Jonghyun won’t have to worry how he looks.

“I like you.” Everything inside Jonghyun rushes to a stop. Everything outside him goes on, Taemin too. He can’t hear him. Jonghyun could say anything, and he wouldn’t hear. “I love you.”

Jonghyun loves him so much, and he wants him so badly, and Taemin is right here. All Jonghyun has to do is tell him, and he’ll know. All he has to do is reach out, and Taemin will be there, under his fingertips, leaning into his touch.

He turns Taemin’s face to his, and kisses him.

For a heartbeat, Taemin freezes, low cut-off noise, breath puffing against Jonghyun’s lips, eyes wide open, staring into Jonghyun’s. Then Jonghyun’s phone slips through Taemin’s nerveless fingers, clatters to the floor, jerks the headphones out of Taemin’s ears, sharp and sudden.

And maybe the moment is broken, but Jonghyun squeezes his eyes shut, holds on, holds the kiss, still so sweet he can barely take it. Slowly, clumsily, Taemin comes to life, comes back into his body. His hands, on Jonghyun’s neck, his shoulders, fingers clenching in his shirt and hanging on. His lips, pressing against Jonghyun’s, kissing him back. And then it’s everything at once, and it’s all Jonghyun can do to take it slow, and keep up with Taemin. He can tell right away Taemin doesn’t know what he’s doing, where this is going, just that he wants it, so badly he might eat Jonghyun up if he doesn’t give it to him. Jonghyun only lets Taemin have as much of him as he can take, a little at a time, lets his own body burn up, hard and wanting. He barely has to touch him before he has Taemin moaning into his mouth, leaning into his hands, following Jonghyun’s lead so closely Jonghyun can hardly breathe, trying everything he likes on Jonghyun in turn.

He likes everything Jonghyun does.

Slow, soft, lingering kisses, holding Taemin by the back of his neck, tracing the curve of Taemin’s spine with his fingers, pressing his hand to the small of Taemin’s back and pulling him in against him, so warm and soft everywhere. Biting his mouth open, tasting him, flirting with Taemin’s tongue, drawing it into his own mouth. Taemin winds his fingers into Jonghyun’s hair, hanging on tight, pulling a little, then a little more when Jonghyun moans. Licks at Jonghyun’s lips, the corner of his mouth, teasing him. Takes his bottom lip between his teeth and bites down, too hard, too soft, little hitched noises Jonghyun breathes in like air.

Says into Jonghyun’s mouth, “You like me.”

Jonghyun pulls away, leans their foreheads together, and waits for Taemin to open his eyes, look at him. “I like you.”

“How long?”

It wouldn’t feel like a lie if Jonghyun said forever, the way he wants to, but he doesn’t have the right to say that to Taemin. “I don’t know,” and suddenly this is the most important thing, “I’m sorry I wasted so much time, I’m sorry I took so long.”

Taemin nudges Jonghyun’s nose with his own, and he’s so pretty up close like this, and for a couple seconds there nothing else exists. Jonghyun has to kiss him, short and sweet, and again, and again, his mouth, his cheek, his forehead, until Taemin breaks into a smile that feels like the sun on Jonghyun’s skin.

“Three years was a lot back then. For me, too.” Taemin’s voice is barely a murmur, so soft and close, touching Jonghyun places no one else has. Taemin wrinkles his nose, and Jonghyun tries to smooth it out with his fingertip. “It still is, right? Kind of.”

Jonghyun says his name, just because. “Taeminnie.” But then there’s more, and as soon as it’s in his head it’s in his body, catching in his throat, squeezing his heart. “You want this?” Taemin nods, so easily. “You want me?” Tries to kiss Jonghyun, leaning into him, but Jonghyun takes his face in his hands and keeps him where he is. “You can’t take it back. You’re sure.”

Taemin’s hands cover his, small and warm and firm. _“Yes,_ hyung.”

“Then you can have me.”

And then they’re kissing again.

Open-mouthed, messy, desperate, so good it’s too much, it’s not enough, Jonghyun needs more. Taemin’s in his arms and under his skin, meeting his tongue with his own, moaning like breathing, and Jonghyun wants to keep him here forever, all to himself, all his. He never wants to let him go again, breathing Taemin in, setting his teeth in his neck, holding him tighter, tighter. Taemin takes whatever he wants, does whatever he can to make Jonghyun crazy, sticking his hands up Jonghyun’s shirt, touching him everywhere he can reach, fingers digging into his flesh, setting Jonghyun’s skin on fire. Climbing into Jonghyun’s lap and sitting on him, solid and warm, staring down at him, wet open mouth Jonghyun can just barely kiss. Taemin gives it to him, pressing in, taking Jonghyun’s tongue, letting him fuck in as deep as he can go, swallowing Jonghyun’s moans, shifting his weight, getting comfortable. Wriggling closer, closer, onto Jonghyun’s dick, and Jonghyun sees white.

And Taemin doesn’t know any better, he’s not torturing Jonghyun or anything. All Jonghyun has to do is keep himself still, set Taemin back on his thighs and hold him there. But then Jonghyun relaxes his grip on his hips, toes uncurling, air in his lungs, and Taemin moves on him again, grinding into him, and he’s such a brat, and he’s waiting for Jonghyun to do something about it. Flushed and dazed, eyes shut so tight his face scrunches up, dick pressing into Jonghyun’s stomach, arms hooked around Jonghyun’s neck, panting into his ear, hot and breathless, “Please, hyung.” 

Taemin’s never done this before. They’re in the middle of the kitchen in the middle of the dorm, and it’s late and Jonghyun’s phone might be broken, and they still have to clean up, and Jonghyun can wait. He has to get this right. Taemin’s never done this before.

It takes everything he has to set Taemin on his feet, and then some more to pull away from him, step out of Taemin’s arms. Taemin doesn’t like that, not at all, clinging to him, making all kinds of noises about it, and Jonghyun thinks Taemin might hate him for it. But then their eyes meet, and Taemin smiles at him like he can’t help it, and says, “Check to see if your screen cracked,” and maybe that was all for nothing, because Jonghyun has to kiss him again.

And again, when they bump into each other at the fridge. And again, just because Taemin’s so cute, and maybe Jonghyun has no self-control. And again, just because.

Taemin takes his hand finally and leads him down the hall. They reach their bedroom door. Jonghyun takes one last look, leans in for one last kiss. Taemin smiles into it, and follows Jonghyun as he pulls away, eyes closed, chasing the feeling. Jonghyun smiles back so hard it hurts, squeezes Taemin’s hand, brings it to his lips.

Tomorrow. And the next day and the next day and the next day. As soon as Jonghyun wakes up. As soon as he falls asleep and dreams. Wherever he goes, whoever he sees, whatever he does. With every breath and every heartbeat. Always.

He pushes the door open and their fingers brush apart.


	3. Chapter 3

“They could’ve given us some time to prepare.”

Jonghyun looks up from his battle with the packing tape to find Kibum dumping another armful of clothes onto Jinki’s bed. All it takes is that one second lapse, and Taemin tries to steal it back. He’s the one who twisted it up in the first place, he can wait for Jonghyun to fix it, pressing into Jonghyun’s side, warm and insistent.

The only thing he can think to say is, _They could have asked us in the first place,_ but that’s worse than useless. SM doesn’t ask, it tells. And besides, he doesn’t mind going topless for _Sherlock’s_ photo book. It would have made no difference to him if they’d given them three weeks’ notice instead of telling them the night before. He’s got nothing to hide.

“I was going to wait until we were a few weeks out, too,” Jinki says wearily. Apparently the thought alone took up all his willpower, because he has to give up on packing for a while, lying on his back and kicking his legs out. “Image training.”

Minho snorts. “You’re so full of it, both of you. You and Taeminnie are allergic to exercise.” When Taemin opens his mouth to argue, Minho cuts him off. “Dancing doesn’t count.”

Minho’s only saying that because he’s never stayed after practice with Taemin. And anyway, more importantly, “Taeminnie’s got nothing to worry about.”

He doesn’t. Jonghyun just hopes Taemin knows it. And there’s a lot more he could say, a lot more he would if he and Taemin were alone, but for now he has to let Minho smirk, say, “He doesn’t, huh,” leaning in to pinch the soft skin of Taemin’s stomach. Taemin laughs and squirms away, but before Jonghyun can think, he’s there. Minho’s eyes flit to his face, and maybe Jonghyun is holding on too tight. It’s all he can do to make himself let go.

Minho sits back on his butt, rubbing his wrist and making a face. “You must be happy, hyung. Your muscles will finally be good for something.”

“Aigoo, like he doesn’t use them to show off already,” Kibum says from the closet. They’re only boxing up whatever Kibum defines as their spring and summer wardrobe, but they’ve been at it forever, and Kibum keeps snapping at them to sort it properly, fold it correctly, how could you ever wear that thing, how could you have bought it to begin with, are you really going to keep it, blah blah blah. And now he wants to complain about Jonghyun. “Everybody else gets dressed in the bathroom but he always comes out in a towel.”

Jonghyun’s face heats. “That’s normal, you’re the only one making it weird.”

“Not when you share a room with four other people, it’s not. There are things people can’t unsee,” Kibum says, throwing a shirt over Jonghyun’s face.

“You couldn’t put up with it to the end?” Jinki says. Which, Jonghyun’s pretty sure that doesn’t really count as defending him. “We have two weeks left here, and then you’ll have your own room. Your own bathroom, too.”

“I mean…if I didn’t say something just now, Taeminnie never would. He’d suffer alone.”

Taemin makes a noise low in his throat, like he has no words and he really needs them. And Jonghyun isn’t sure what for, if he’s thinking of Jonghyun naked right now and it’s getting dangerous, or if he’s about to protest that he never agreed to room with him in the first place.

Before Taemin can open his mouth, Jonghyun retorts, “Like I’m so horrible to look at,” and he’s just saying. He’s looking anywhere but Taemin, too, all the while watching him out of the corner of his eye, feeling for Taemin underneath the pile of clothes.

Taemin barely reacts to his touch, even when Jonghyun squeezes his thigh. And he ignores him for Kibum, too. “You still notice stuff like that? I don’t anymore, I’ve seen you guys naked so many times.”

Maybe Jonghyun pinches him, but Taemin doesn’t react like he’s supposed to, he just looks at Jonghyun like, _What was that for?_

Jonghyun half-asses his way through folding the pile of clothes in his lap, stuffing them into the box and taping it up, pushing himself onto his feet before Kibum can bury him again. Taemin’s eyes follow him up, craning back to look at him, so he doesn’t miss anything when Jonghyun says for him to hear, “We’re almost done here, right? I’m gonna go to the gym.”

Except, Taemin is Taemin. He makes a face like Jonghyun is being weird, and says, “It’s not even eleven, think of a better excuse to ditch us.”

Jonghyun widens his eyes at him, digs his toes into Taemin’s butt.

“Go on, hyung.” Kibum again. “You’ll just get on my nerves if you stay. You are already, just thinking about it.”

Whatever.

“Do you want to come with me, Taeminnie?” Jonghyun says, being one hundred and ten percent obvious.

Maybe he should have gone for two hundred, because Taemin shoots him a look. “I thought you said I had nothing to worry about?”

For a second there he makes Jonghyun so crazy he can’t see straight. Then his pout twitches into a smirk, and it’s too late when he ducks his head, hides it behind his fist. Jonghyun sees everything. All he has to do is evade Jinki when he grabs at his ankles, drag him as far as the hallway when Jinki manages to hang on, put his shoes on, find his car keys, find his coat, check his pocket for his wallet, reach for the door handle…think better of it, decide whether he has to pee, wait to see if Taemin’s going to make him shut himself up in the bathroom and pretend—

“Wait up, hyung.”

_Finally._

Jonghyun goes for the stairs instead of the elevator, then dawdles. They’re only going as far as his car, and Taemin won’t want to waste time talking when they get there. Jonghyun still hasn’t figured out how to make him. Kissing him and touching him doesn’t get Jonghyun any further than tickling him and teasing him ever did. It just makes Jonghyun forget how to talk.

Jonghyun doesn’t mean for it, but the first thing out of his mouth is, “You don’t notice me?”

“Huh?”

Fine then. Jonghyun will just put it out there, “I have a good body, you know,” just for the record, and then Taemin can laugh at him all he wants. Jonghyun’s pretty sure he won’t be laughing in another five minutes, when he’s sticking his hands up Jonghyun’s shirt and moaning into his mouth.

All Taemin does now is smile to himself, and agree, “Uh huh,” way too easily. And the next thing is, “You look like someone out of Dragon Ball.”

Jonghyun doesn’t know how he’s supposed to take that. “You don’t like muscles?”

“I’ve never really thought about it like that.”

“Well, think about it now,” Jonghyun replies, kind of put out. No one’s around to see it when he catches Taemin by the wrist, threads their fingers together, but still, his heart skips a beat. “Don’t you think about me at all? I think about you all the time.”

It takes Taemin a few more steps to realize Jonghyun’s not going anywhere, and then he lets him hold him back easy as anything, turning to face him. It’s been a week and a half, but Jonghyun can’t get used to it, looking into Taemin’s face, waiting for Taemin to find a new way to tell him how he feels. He can’t get enough.

“I liked you when you were skinny, and I like you now. It doesn’t really change anything for me,” Taemin says at last, a little shy, a little pink.

Jonghyun squeezes his hand. “You just like me?”

Like magic, Taemin beams at him, and all he has to say to that is, “Mm.” He tugs at Jonghyun, waits until they’ve started on their way down again, shoulders bumping, hips brushing, before he goes on. Says, “I don’t have to ask if you like muscles,” as if Jonghyun works out just to look at himself, or something. “Would you like it better if we really did go to the gym?”

“You’re cute just how you are, and you know it.” Taemin is so much more than that, that’s just the first thing, and he doesn’t care if Taemin’s smirking again. “Your face, your body, the air around you, everything about you is pretty.”

Taemin takes that in, and Jonghyun thinks that’s all, that’s it. Right away he’s this close to asking Taemin if he’s going to say anything back, if he really has nothing to say after looking at Jonghyun for seven years, but Taemin doesn’t make him.

“You’re cute, too.”

That’s that. Now for the other thing.

“Taemin-ah…you’re going to room with me, right?” he says. “I know you said it wasn’t about me before, I get all that.” His mouth goes dry and his stomach flutters, and he has to make himself go there. “But now it is.”

Taemin shoots him a smile. “You think it’ll get boring, making out in your car?”

“Taemin-ah~”

“Probably. It wouldn’t be easy to get rid of Jinki hyung or Manager Hyung, either, right?” Taemin goes on, like he’s really thinking this through. “It’s better if we sleep together.”

Jonghyun didn’t even mean it like that. He can’t sleep without Taemin, is all. He should probably just tell Taemin that, instead of letting Taemin’s own words sneak up on him, turning his cheeks red, turning his eyes away from Jonghyun, so cute Jonghyun can’t even take it. He makes it to the second floor landing, and then draws Taemin in to meet his lips. Taemin smiles, hums, leans into it. Kisses him back.

It’s been harder than he expected to find excuses to have Taemin all to himself, so much harder to behave himself all day when Taemin’s right there the whole time, and Taemin’s always making it impossible for him to think, when he really, really should be. Like right now. They haven’t even told the others yet, and there are like twenty other people who use these stairs every day, and the only thing left in Jonghyun’s head is Taemin’s mouth.

And all he ever needs is more of him, pressing Taemin into the wall, then pressing into him. He teases Taemin’s mouth open, and Taemin’s so lost in his kiss, sucking on his tongue, holding his face, that he’s not there to stop Jonghyun when his hands start to wander. Like he would anyway. Jonghyun flirts with the hem of Taemin’s shirt, his waistband, skin-on-skin, then slides his hands down and cups his ass. Taemin smiles, huffed breath against his lips. Like ha ha, Jonghyun hyung is touching his butt. Jonghyun squeezes, gets a gasp out of him. Harder, and Taemin pushes back into his hands, hands fisted in his hair, and Jonghyun forgives him this time when he really does laugh, hitched and breathless. He lets Taemin have his mouth when he leans in again, too, and finally lets him pull away, just for a second, just until Jonghyun stops seeing stars.

Or not. All of the sudden a door slams and there are footsteps, echoing their way up, up, slow and heavy enough that he and Taemin have time to break apart. It takes everything Jonghyun’s got to let him go, and step away from him.

It’s only Manager Hyung.

“Where are you two going?” he says.

“The gym,” Taemin blurts out, just as Jonghyun says, “The store,” and then Jonghyun kind of panics, tripping over himself to cover. “Taeminnie begged me, we’re out of milk. Pop, too. Is there anything you want from there?”

Manager Hyung doesn’t even bother getting their stories straight, just sighs.

“Can it wait? You’ve got mail again.”

Jonghyun doesn’t give himself any time to think. He takes the envelope from Manager Hyung and rips it open. It’s only more of the same, it’s nothing. But before he can get rid of it, Taemin’s hand shoots out and grabs his wrist.

“There’s something written on the back, hyung.”

Jonghyun’s heart drops.

He’s pretty sure he got the message a long time ago, they were happy not using words and he was dealing with it just fine, and whatever they have to say he doesn’t have to listen, and he doesn’t even have to read whatever it is—

But Taemin is right. Scrawled in bold black sharpie are the words:

_LOOK AT ME_

 

“It’s the same handwriting.”

Leave it to Jinki to state the obvious. Anyone with eyes could see as much, looking at the photos side by side. Kibum leans in on his elbows for a closer look, crowding everybody else out. Jonghyun is okay with that, he’s okay with whatever. He could be making out with Taemin right now, but instead he’s back here again, kitchen table, everybody checking on him, everybody pretending they’re not.

Kibum takes his turn, sitting back in his chair and asking, “What are we supposed to be looking at exactly?” like Jonghyun should be able to tell him.

“Not ‘we,’ Jonghyun hyung.” Minho gives Kibum a look, even though he should know better than anyone that those don’t work on him, and then moves on. “You said it’s not this Jihye girl? Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.”

Jonghyun doesn’t bother pointing out this thing is coming right after he saw her, or that she’d have no reason to have an account on their fansites, let alone use it to set herself up, or that Jihye’s not stupid or crazy or anything like that.

And anyway, Taemin is there to do it for him. “She isn’t that kind of person.”

Minho keeps his eyes on Jonghyun, almost like he’s trying to read his face. He says almost carefully, “I don’t know, love can get pretty twisted,” and that’s as far as he gets before he cuts himself off, and his face contorts in pain. He shoots Kibum another look, probably because Kibum just kicked him in the shin.

“Taeminnie said you guys know how it went with me and her. Either you don’t remember, or you’re playing dumb,” Jonghyun says. “If it’s the second thing, stop it. I’m fine.”

“She was _that_ girlfriend?” Minho blurts out. “Sorry, hyung, I didn’t think. I wasn’t thinking.”

Kibum scoffs. “Do you ever?”

Minho retorts, and they’re off, and it’s out there. They already knew anyway. Before Jonghyun can decide if he should be feeling humiliated all over again, Taemin finds his foot with his own and sneaks a hand onto Jonghyun’s thigh, like he’s trying to make sure he really is fine. Jonghyun traps it in his and pulls it into his lap, so small and warm. Taemin lets him get away with it, smiling into his fist.

“Whatever,” Minho says finally, “if it’s not from her, hyung, it’s probably not from an anti, either. It’s probably from a sasaeng fan.” He’s talking to Jonghyun again. Jonghyun should probably stop playing with Taemin’s fingers and pay attention. “It’s a jealousy thing. ‘Look at me,’ as in, stop looking at other women. Notice me. Fall for me.”

“Or else,” Jinki adds. He looks so serious Jonghyun has to fight down a laugh.

“It’d take more than a sasaeng,” Jonghyun says. “I dated Jihye when we were nobodies, but okay, let’s say they dug that up somehow. What about Moon Mikyung? They’d have to know what she’s like, her situation, the stuff about us she was sitting on, all that. She had nothing to do with me, I didn’t even know she existed until they sent her that photo.”

“Then let’s stick with what we do know,” Kibum says right away, like he was just waiting for someone else to cut Minho off for a change. “Who says it has to be complicated? ‘Look at me’ probably just means look at the photo itself.”

Before Jonghyun can tell him he’s _been_ looking at it, Minho is there. “They’ve been sending him these things since December, Kibum-ah. You don’t think poking his eyes out and drawing on him would be enough to catch his attention?”

Kibum barely lets him finish, telling Jonghyun, “It’s not about what I think, we’re talking about a crazy person here. There’s no point trying to understand them.” He flips the photo over, face up, prodding his finger into what’s left of Jonghyun’s face. “Do you even know where this was taken?”

“It’s from before our debut. 2005 or 2006?”

Kibum doesn’t cluck his tongue or tell Jonghyun he should be able to remember living with that haircut, just keeps pushing. “Yeah but like, were you out with your friends? Was it at the training center? Did something happen the day it was taken, do you remember who took it?”

Jonghyun has no clue. But there’s something there. The training program…

“It’s a fan thing,” Minho insists. “If it really were somebody who knows him, there’d be a better way to get in touch with him than sending him creepy photos.”

“What gives you the idea they’re interested in talking?”

“He’d be locked up in a hotel room eating dumplings if they weren’t,” Jinki says, because of course he would. He bumps Jonghyun’s shoulder with his own, smiling. “Did you ever see something you shouldn’t, tell someone else about it?”

“The rumors back then were about me, and the rumors now were about all of us,” Jonghyun reminds him, because he can’t bring himself to pretend it’s funny, and because that’s it, right there.

_It was all over the training program, there’s nobody who didn’t know about it._

Jonghyun tries to catch Taemin’s eye, not sure what exactly he’s going to say, where his brain is headed, but Taemin just squeezes his hand, turns to Manager Hyung. When he speaks up it’s only to break Manager Hyung’s silence. “What do you think, hyung?”

Manager Hyung sighs. “This isn’t _Oldboy,_ this is real life. You guys don’t need to worry about who’s sending them or why, the company can do that for you.”

Taemin says, caught out, face kind of falling, “But you went to see Moon Mikyung with us.”

…And there’s the other half of this. Moon Mikyung. Even she and Manager Hyung don’t go as far back as their trainee days, and Jonghyun only met him for the first time a week before Shinee debuted. Jihye was long gone by then.

But anyway.

“And you looked into her yourself,” Jonghyun adds, and he’s not just saying that to back Taemin up, get Taemin to shoot him a smile, so cute Jonghyun doesn’t know what to do with himself. Really, he’s not. “It’s my life, hyung. I’m tired of getting these things, and someone out there keeps sending them to me.”

“You ever think there’s no reason, Jonghyunnie? Even if you find out who’s doing it, why they think you deserve it, it won’t mean anything to you. It probably wouldn’t even make sense.”

“I did think that.”

And he did. All this time, he’s let it get to him, imagining a real person out there, hating him just because. Hating Jonghyun’s face, hating Jonghyun’s life, hating Jonghyun’s voice or his eyes or his smile, the things he says in interviews, the things he does in public, the way he acts in front of a camera, anything and everything about him. Nothing he could fix. Nothing he could do to change their minds about him, either, because if he tried, they’d probably just hate him more.

“But it’s like I said. Whoever it is, they’re close enough to put together stuff you can’t see from the outside. That probably means they know the real me. Or they did.”

Which means Jonghyun might have met them before. Maybe he thinks he knows them.

 

“How’d it go?”

Taemin has nothing to say to Jonghyun either way, but he squeezes Kibum out and sinks down on the couch next to him, slumping into his side. Photo shoots are always bad days for him, and nothing about him tells Jonghyun that today was any worse than normal, but Jonghyun knows better. He reaches over to pry Taemin’s hands apart before he wrings the life out of them, surprising him into looking. All Jonghyun has to do then is smile as stupidly as he can, and not make it into a joke, ask which was worse, going topless or going alone.

Kibum nudges Taemin’s knee with his own, tries reasoning with him. “It’ll come out fine. You photograph well.”

Taemin doesn’t get the chance to reply, before one of the coordi noonas working on set pokes her head into the waiting room to say, “Minho-yah, you’re next~”

For the first time in his life, Minho’s not looking too good, pale and tense, going crazy on caffeine and nerves.

“Oh man. I didn’t think I’d get nervous,” he gets out, head in his hands. Kibum scoffs. Somehow that gives Minho the strength to climb to his feet, fall back on, “If I’m like this, you and Jinki hyung must be in hell~”

“I’m not the one sweating my make up off,” Kibum retorts, no real bite to it. When Minho leans across him to snag a tissue, he clicks his tongue, slapping his hand away. “You want to make it worse? Let the coordi noonas deal with it, they’re professionals.”

Minho actually listens to him for once, says one more thing, “I’ll take good care of you when it’s your turn, Kibummie,” and Jonghyun’s not sure if that’s supposed to be a warning or what, but Minho leaves it there. It’s not like he has much choice, because he already made the noonas wait too long, and now they’ve come to take him by force.

Down to four again.

Jonghyun’s pretty sure he’ll end up going last, but he’s fine with that. Taemin had thought he would, thought he’d bested the four of them at rock-paper-scissors, but they turned it around on him and made him go first instead. He hated them for it, Jonghyun too, but the important thing is he’s gotten it over with. Taemin can breathe again, which means Jonghyun can, too.

And now Taemin’s forgotten he’s not talking to them. The first thing he says is, “Hyung…” Jonghyun waits him out, lost in Taemin’s hair, playing with it. It’s long today. “I’ve been thinking.”

Jinki lays his head on Jonghyun’s other shoulder, kicking his legs up onto the coffee table. Says around a yawn, “That’s never a good sign.”

“About the photos—”

Kibum sighs explosively.

“Seriously, Taeminnie, don’t worry about it. The concept is body line, not body. They said they’d have to edit some of Jonghyun hyung’s muscles out.”

Kibum’s right, and Taemin has the best body line out of all of them. Jonghyun’s just not sure whether he’s still allowed to say that kind of thing aloud, if it’d confuse Taemin now. The others don’t know anything’s changed between them, but it’s not like either of them are about to forget, not right now at least, with every place they’re touching warm and whiting out, electric.

And then Taemin goes and ruins it. “I mean the ones of Jonghyun hyung.”

Jonghyun really doesn’t feel like going there, but he makes himself say, “What is it?”

Taemin’s done his thinking, he just said, but he has to think it through again now, feeling his way a few words at a time.

“It’s just…last night was the first one since December, right? That means they stopped sending them for a whole month. Which means they started up again just now.”

“Yes…?”

“You think we did something to make them stop?” Jinki cuts in. Of course he’d be the one to figure Taemin out, when neither of them make any sense. “It’s just as likely they got too busy and got behind on hating him.” Nobody asked him to, but Jinki gives it some more thought, turns everything he just said upside down. “And they also went like four years without sending anything at all. Maybe even twenty-three, if it’s personal.”

Jonghyun barely slept last night, and Manager Hyung dragged him out of bed to come here. He doesn’t want to hear any of this, but if he sits here and lets Jinki and Taemin do all the talking, he’ll go crazy.

He’s just so fucking tired.

“Do you have a point?” he says.

Kibum snorts, gives him this look over Taemin’s shoulder like, _Do you even need to ask?_

But Taemin ignores him and Jinki both for Jonghyun, so Jonghyun tries to do the same when Taemin says, “Manager Hyung went to see Moon Mikyung first. A million times by the time we got there, she said.”

“It’s called exaggerating, Taeminnie,” Jonghyun tells him, and then he gets a little stuck. “What are you trying to say? They realized we were onto Moon Mikyung, and panicked? There’s another person out there who knows Manager Hyung and hates my guts?”

“Maybe Moon Sokyung is the final boss,” Jinki says, before Taemin can reply, and at least he finds himself funny, because nobody else ever does. When he gets over it, the next thing is, “Whoever it is, maybe they tried to quit, like smoking or something.” He sighs, flops back against the couch like he’s tiring himself out. “Maybe we should try quitting this. Maybe, maybe, maybe~”

Maybe he’s right. Maybe Jonghyun keeps going back and forth between running away and staring this thing in the face because that’s easier than getting over it.

Someone out there hates him. Someone who knows him, probably. That’s normal, nobody likes everybody. It’s not even surprising, half the time he hates himself. And there are a lot of people he doesn’t like.

Except, he doesn’t need them to know that. And he’s hurt a lot of people, but he’s only ever tried not to. He’s never scribbled on someone and stabbed them with a pencil, spread shit about them, thrown their heartbreaks in their face, hurt them where he wanted them to see.

Whoever this person is, whatever Jonghyun did to them, they’d do worse to him. That’s their problem, but he keeps making it his, hurting himself. He needs to stop. The end.

Or not, because now Kibum’s saying, “I mean…my theory last night made more sense than anything you guys have said. Even Minho’s did.” Jonghyun can tell the exact second Kibum gives up trying to take this seriously. It’s all over his evil, smirking face. “There are a lot of women in your life, hyung. If you count up all your ex’s…half your friends…people at work…there’s got to be one who’s crazy enough to be crazy about you.”

Jonghyun’s face goes hot. Kibum needs to shut up because Taemin is _right here,_ and if Taemin’s crazy Jonghyun’s crazier, and if Taemin’s only looked at him up till now, Jonghyun will never look at anyone else ever again. But there’s no way he can come out and say that, pressing his thigh into Taemin’s, stroking his hair, leaning into him.

And then Jinki catches up. Smiles. Jonghyun has one second where he knows Jinki is going to say something stupid and crazy, probably both, and then he opens his mouth and it’s so much worse.

“Ahjumma?”

Taemin bursts out laughing. Jonghyun’s not sure which one Kibum’s talking to when he says, “Oh my God, stop,” but it doesn’t matter, because Kibum cracks, smiling into his fist. “She’s married, try again.”

Jinki does his best, going from the cleaning lady to…“Scary Noona?”

As far as Jonghyun knows she’s off with Minho, and the coordi noonas that aren’t are on the other side of the room, hanging around and shooting the shit, same as the four of them. There’s no way they heard Jinki, and they probably won’t catch Jonghyun freaking out, either.

“Stop it,” he says, but that just makes Jinki smile and Taemin laugh harder, and it’s really not funny. “Are you sure she likes men?”

It’s a mistake, because Jinki doesn’t blink, and right away he comes back at Jonghyun with, “Are you sure she doesn’t?” and there’s no defending against that. She always looks at him like he’s a bug, but that’s how she looks at everyone. That’s just how she looks, period.

Taemin’s the one who goes there. “Are you sure she likes anyone?”

 _“Just_ anyone, you mean? There are levels to these things,” Kibum says, sly sideways glance at Jonghyun from across Taemin. “Let’s say she doesn’t see Jonghyun hyung as a man, and stop there.”

Jonghyun’s first thought is _you started it._ But then Jinki says, “Why does it sound like you’re saying Jonghyunnie’s not a man?” and Jonghyun’s second is that Taemin’s not laughing at him. He’s long since lost it, breathless, weak, waiting it out on Jonghyun’s shoulder, fingers caught in his shirt, hanging on for dear life. There’s no stopping Taemin when he starts up, that’s all.

“Do you see her as a woman?” Jonghyun snaps. _“Scary Noona?”_ And so what if there’s no point asking Kibum that. “Would anyone? They’d have to look at her first.”

Too far.

Too _loud._

First there’s Taemin’s finger poking into his side, and then all of the sudden another, prodding into the back of his head, between the knobs of his spine. Jonghyun doesn’t need Kibum to say loudly, “Oh my God, say something next time,” to know who he’ll see when he tips his head back, looks up. Minho, giving him this look like Jonghyun’s the biggest idiot in the world, like it’d be better if Jonghyun melted into the floor.

And at his shoulder, Scary Noona.

She meets his eyes for as long as he can stand to look her in the face, and leaves him feeling like shit, mouth dry, skin crawling, hot and cold, voice clawing up his insides with excuses, apologies, ways to change the subject. Just shitty, shitty, shitty.

Jonghyun is a piece of shit.

 

“Where did Jinmyung-ssi go?”

Manager Hyung, back with coffee. He took care of Jonghyun and the others first, and now the coordi noonas are swarming him.

“Smoke break,” one of them tells him.

Manager Hyung frowns. “I thought she was quitting?”

“You know how it goes, Joomin-ssi. You’ve been quitting for four years.”

Taemin murmurs, snuggles closer, snores into his shirt. Jonghyun tries leaving Scary Noona to her cigarettes, letting himself have this.

Minho nudges Jonghyun with his foot. “Drink up, hyung. We have all day after this, you’ll hate yourself if you crash now.”

There’s a lot Minho doesn’t need to know, so Jonghyun drinks.

Jinki returns and Kibum goes, and Minho tries arguing with Jonghyun instead for a while, but he figures out Jonghyun’s not in the mood quickly enough.

At some point Manager Hyung checks in with them, tells them where they’re headed next, what day they’re coming back for the group shots, all kinds of stuff Jonghyun should be listening to. Finally he hears his name, and turns to find Manager Hyung watching him.

He pats Jonghyun on the shoulder, and Jonghyun knows he’s thinking about the photo, and now he is too. But all Manager Hyung says is, “Traffic will be bad, getting out of here. That should give you time to catch some sleep.”

Jonghyun can’t take much more of this, so he puts his headphones in. Picks a demo. Turns the volume up, up, up, until he can’t hear himself think.

Drifts.

Suddenly, finally, Kibum yanks him back down to planet earth. Yanks his earbuds out of his ears just to tell him, “Hurry up, hyung. It’s your turn.”

Jonghyun has to take it.

None of the others told him it would be freezing on set, all the more when he’s got his shirt and shoes off. Scary Noona’s hands are like ice, rubbing oil onto his abs, but it’s worse when she touches up his make up, leaning in close, breath tickling his skin. He has nowhere to look but her, nothing to see but her. And when he stares into her face, she stares back into him.

If she hates him, he has to hate himself more.

Out of nowhere, she says, “Hold still. People are going to be looking at you whether you like it or not, and you’re better off liking it. Trust me.”

And out of nowhere she smiles, strange and tight and harsh, like her face fought her the whole way. It takes everything Jonghyun has to smile back, until his cheeks hurt and his eyes crinkle up and it feels real, but she hates it. She hates it so much.

And then she says it.

“Do you want me to poke your eye out or something? Ruin your photos before they’re even taken?”

It hits Jonghyun sideways, from the inside out, so hard he sees black, and he thinks he might be sick, and he thinks he might be crazy. And he thinks and thinks and he can’t stop.

_Could you say hello to Jinmyung unnie for me? I’ll tell Sokyung unnie for you._

_How does she know Scary Noona? She was all over Sokyung noona-ssi’s SNS._

_Jinmyung-ssi and Sokyung-ssi go way back._

_How did you get that out of Scary Noona?_

_I just asked._

“Look at the camera, Jonghyun-goon.”

Jonghyun does what he’s told. There’s nothing else he can do, when he can feel her eyes on him, turning his insides black, and there are a million photos of him between him and that door.

And between him and her, he has this terrible fucked up feeling there are six.

 

“It’s just a feeling. You said it yourself.”

For the first time in history, Minho sides with Kibum. “I mean…Scary Noona? Seriously? Is this supposed to be a joke?”

It’s so hard to talk to them.

This is exactly why Jonghyun wanted to start with Taemin, and it’s why he should probably have stopped with him, too. But Jinki caught them on their way out, and it was all over once Taemin lied and said they were going to the store, and Jinki said he had stuff that needed buying. First Kibum had to come along too, to make sure Jinki didn’t cheat on his diet, and then Minho didn’t want to be left out, and now they’ve forgotten their drinks to stare at him, and he’s got three pairs of eyes nailed to his face, telling him he’s crazy. 

And now Kibum’s repeating himself. “You’re serious.”

Yes.

Jonghyun had to get it out one way or the other, so maybe it’s better this way. He takes a deep breath.

“Then tell me why it can’t be her. Let’s start there.”

He thinks they’ll need some time with that one, but it takes Minho all of two seconds to turn it around on him.

“How is that fair?” he says indignantly. Jonghyun’s not sure who he thinks he’s defending, if he’s worried about Scary Noona, or losing an argument before it starts. “How well do you even know her, to say she could send those photos? None of us do.”

Jonghyun takes a moment to separate what Minho said from the way he said it, keeping his voice even as he replies, “Don’t you think that says something about her? We’ve been working together for four years.”

Jinki’s been sulking, chewing on his straw instead of the ramyun Kibum made him put back, but all of the sudden he starts up with, “It’s been more than that—”

That’s as far as he gets before Kibum says over him, “Kim Jihye for starters,” and then bites his lip, searching Jonghyun’s face, probably trying to see if he should regret bringing her up. Finally Kibum goes on, almost carefully, “What’s it to Scary Noona, who you dated when you were a trainee? It’s not her job to care now, either.”

Jonghyun hadn’t thought much further ahead than the words that came out of Scary Noona’s own mouth, specifically the stuff about poking eyes out and ruining photos, but just like that, Kibum’s got him stuck. And he already told Kibum Jihye doesn’t bother him anymore, and he’d tell him again now, as many times as it takes, but he can feel Taemin’s eyes on him too. Words don’t always work on him. He lets Taemin look all he wants, see for himself how okay Jonghyun is, and tries to say it as many ways as he can, passing his hand through Taemin’s hair, stroking it back from his face, punching a straw into Taemin’s coffee milk and stealing a sip.

Too far. Taemin makes a face at him, and Jonghyun makes him take it back by force. By the time he pries Jonghyun’s fingers off the bottle he’s too busy playing with them instead.

Meanwhile, back on planet earth, “That doesn’t mean she didn’t know about it, though?” Jinki says. Scary Noona. The photos. His shit. Everything in Jonghyun’s life that’s not Taemin. And then he tells them all, “She was around back then, she consulted for the training program. Skincare and stuff,” and that’s news to Jonghyun. When nobody backs him up, Jinki glances around at them all, as surprised as they are. “You guys didn’t meet her until afterwards? Really? I guess my image training was on a different level~”

None of them have ever had Jinki’s problems. Sure, they’ve all dieted, had their hair treated, been sent to dermatologists, but no one from the company’s ever told any of them to lose fifteen pounds in three weeks, quit drinking, stop eating, start smoking, whatever it takes.

“Anyway,” Jinki continues. “Scary Noona,” no, “Jinmyung noona,” and he tries again, “Lee Jinmyung-ssi—”

“Oh my God, hyung, just pick one.”

Taemin moves on before Jinki gets a chance. “The timing fits. She was the first person we asked about Moon Mikyung, maybe she even knows Moon Mikyung showed us that photo.” He catches Jonghyun’s eye. “And she was really close with Moon Mikyung’s sister. Remember? It looked like she’s the only one from SM who still is.”

Kibum narrows his eyes at the two of them over his juice.

“None of that proves anything.” He gives Jonghyun this look like he shouldn’t even have to say that, or this next thing either, but Jonghyun’s not making him. Kibum’s all on his own when he says, “You sure you’re not projecting, hyung? You felt bad about what you said, so you took everything she said the wrong way?”

Kibum wasn’t there. He didn’t see the look she gave him, he didn’t hear her voice as she said it. He only knows she said it because Jonghyun told him here, bright white lights, coffee and pajamas, snow outside the window, just the five of them. He doesn’t know better than Jonghyun.

Instead of telling Kibum as much, Jonghyun says, “You say that like she talks normally. This is the first time she’s said anything to me this whole comeback.”

“I don’t think that’s what Kibummie means.” Jinki, all of the sudden. He’s the last person who’d know what Kibum means about anything, and they all know it, but whatever. Jonghyun listens to him figure it out. “Like, you don’t like the way she looks at you, but that’s just how she looks. You don’t like looking at her. You don’t like her, maybe. So maybe it’s easier for you to think she doesn’t like you?”

That hits so much harder than anything Kibum actually said. Jonghyun will just go ahead and feel like shit some more, thanks.

“I’m not the only one who calls her Scary Noona,” he snaps, instead of biting his tongue. “You’re the one who came up with it, hyung.”

Jonghyun can’t win with Minho tonight either, because he’s there before Jinki can open his mouth. “You’re the one who took it too far, though.”

Taemin tenses up against Jonghyun.

“You weren’t even there. It was a joke. Just because you didn’t get it, doesn’t mean he said something wrong.”

“It’s okay, Taeminnie. It wasn’t funny, anyway.”

Taemin doesn’t go back to his milk until Jonghyun makes him, smiling and smiling at him stupidly, reaching in like he’s going to steal it again, pinching Taemin’s cheek instead when he huddles over both bottles, switching between them. Banana and coffee can’t be a good combination, but Jonghyun would give anything to kiss Taemin right now. Taste him.

In the meantime, Minho finds it in himself to say, “I didn’t mean it like that,” even though Jonghyun’s pretty sure he did, and he’s pretty sure Minho was right, and Jonghyun deserved to hear worse. “And it’s not just this one thing, it’s not just Jonghyun hyung. It’s more like…” Finally, for the first time all night, he stops to think. “I feel like we should be able to understand someone like Jinmyung noona, you know? Maybe being pretty is better than being ugly, but people judge us based on how we look all the time. And maybe we’re not allowed to date, but women like her aren’t even supposed to fall in love. They’re just supposed to get older.”

Guys who look like Minho aren’t supposed to have thoughts that deep, either. For once, arguing with him is the last thing Jonghyun feels like doing. He has to make himself go there.

“You think she’d see it that way? It’s easy for you to see yourself in her, it sounds good coming from you. But I don’t think it’s the same for her, Minho-yah. The view is different from the outside looking in,” he says. “Being ugly is harder than being pretty. And even if it’s fake, even if it’s enough to make people hate us…getting too much love beats getting none.”

Jinki gets it first.

“‘Look at me.’” He turns to Jonghyun. “Do you think she could try to hurt you?”

Jonghyun doesn’t get why Jinki’s asking him. He doesn’t have an answer for him.

“I don’t know. Probably not? But I don’t know.”

 

Kibum and Minho run out of reasons why it can’t be her, and Jonghyun runs out of reasons why it could. Jinki goes shopping, torturing himself in the snack aisle, and Taemin drinks so much he thinks he’ll pee his pants the second he steps out into the cold. Kibum gets the bathroom key out of the clerk, so Jonghyun hangs around at checkout with no Taemin to corral out the door ahead of the others, and no Taemin to make faces at him and bat his hands away when Jonghyun touches his butt.

Jinki ends up with dried squid and no soju, since Kibum snatched it out of the clerk’s hands, so the four of them end up waiting around for Taemin. The clerk doesn’t care. As far as she’s concerned they don’t exist.

“I probably learned this stuff at some point, but you look so smart to me right now. I haven’t done math since like 2009,” Minho says to the clerk. She doesn’t say anything back, doesn’t look up from her workbook.

If someone finds calculus more interesting than you, Jonghyun’s pretty sure that’s a sign to shut up, but Kibum’s too bored to care. He’s not trying to impress anyone when he pronounces, “I don’t do math.”

“It’s all useless in real life, but good grades aren’t. Not if you want to get anywhere,” Jinki tells her. “Study hard~”

Her pencil stops.

“It passes the time,” she says.

Which, she said something. But then Jonghyun hears Taemin’s voice, and kind of forgets he ever heard hers.

“You didn’t wait outside, hyung?”

About time.

On the way back, they lag behind. It’s not long before the others are half a block away, a block, until they’re out of earshot, and it’s just the two of them. Jonghyun’s been waiting for this moment all day and all night, ever since they broke their last kiss.

Taemin has too. The first thing out of his mouth is, “We should’ve let them go and stayed home.”

Jonghyun smiles. He can’t help it. “With Manager Hyung?”

“We could’ve gone out, after,” Taemin persists.

“To my car?”

Taemin beams.

“Mm.”

He’s so bad. Jonghyun should really do something about it. He doesn’t know what, but something. “Taemin-ah…there are other things. I’m more than just my body.”

Taemin gives him this look like he’s being obvious or crazy, maybe both. “So am I?”

“So go on a date with me,” Jonghyun says, and as soon as he says it his heart picks up. “Let’s go for a walk. It’ll be really late, and really cold too, but the river is prettier at night, and you look cute all bundled up. We can hold hands, too.” He tries to give Taemin time to answer, but Taemin spends it looking at him instead. “Taeminnie?” At the sound of his own name, Taemin gets this look on his face, same as when he’s leaning into Jonghyun’s touch. “You’re falling for me, right~? You want to kiss me?”

“Mm.”

Jonghyun fumbles for his hand. It feels warmer in the cold.

“Use words, okay?” he says. “Talk to me.”

“Mm.”

Taemin’s so impossible, and he knows it, too. He’s doing this to Jonghyun on purpose.

“Taemin-ah~”

When Taemin’s laughter dies, it lingers in his face, bright and open. And it’s in his voice when he goes on, “Hyung…if you want something from me, ask me,” and at Jonghyun’s fingertips, when Taemin squeezes his hand. “Or you can just tell me, that’s okay too. “

Jonghyun smiles back.

“I’m not like you. I won’t know your feelings unless you say something, but I want to,” Taemin says. It’s getting harder and harder for him to meet Jonghyun’s eyes, talk to him instead of the moon, but as long as he doesn’t look away, Jonghyun won’t either. “I want to try. Let me in. Talk to me, too.”

Taemin’s putting his everything into saying this stuff out loud, where Jonghyun can see. Jonghyun’s just going to take it.

“I won’t make you ask, Taeminnie.” Taemin is touching Jonghyun so deep inside, but his own words make him shy. It takes so much just to say, “But it’s okay if you do.”

The dorm is already so close, and the next time like this is already so far away. Jonghyun doesn’t know if it’d be better to stay right here forever or skip ahead, just that he’d be okay, if it’s with Taemin. It’s not until Taemin passes their building by, that Jonghyun can breathe again. He hangs onto him, lets Taemin take him around the block again.

After a while Taemin says, “What’d you think of ‘Sherlock,’ when you first heard it?”

“Meh.”

It’s the truth, but it makes Taemin smile. It was supposed to. “And now?”

“Now it’s ours,” Jonghyun says. “It’s Shinee. I like it.”

Taemin nods, like that much was obvious. Then he asks, “What’d you think of me, when you first met me?”

That’s easy.

“You were cute.”

Taemin gets this look on his face like he wants to laugh, and that’s all the warning Jonghyun has before Taemin traps Jonghyun in the corner of his eye, says slyly, “Just not as cute as I am now?”

“You were also thirteen, Taeminnie,” Jonghyun reminds him, but it falls on deaf ears. Jonghyun’s not sure if he’s in trouble, if he’s allowed to laugh too, and he’s totally not smiling when he tries, “Hyung was blind. Hyung was an idiot.”

Taemin thinks that’s even funnier, and for the longest time he can’t even look Jonghyun in the face without smiling to himself. But all that means to Jonghyun is Taemin’s not hiding from him. He lets himself be greedy, stares and stares, trying to memorize every tiny detail, and then again when something, anything changes. Little by little, moment-to-moment, he forgets every other thing he gets to see every day, the night sky, the city at his feet, and makes Taemin his whole world.

Long after the joke’s over, and Taemin moves on to the next thing. “How bad was it when you realized Scary Noona was behind you?”

“Do you need to ask?” Jonghyun says before he can stop himself. But he has to answer, he has Taemin waiting, and all he can say is, “Shitty.”

“And it’s still bad now?”

“Worse. Shittier.”

Taemin squeezes his hand. 

“The person sending those photos…why do you want to know who they are?”

Jonghyun holds on tight.

“It’s not that. It’s just…it’s harder on me, not knowing.”

Taemin’s mouth tightens, but he’s so gentle with Jonghyun when he says, “You mean you’re harder on yourself.”

Jonghyun doesn’t know what Taemin wants to hear, that Jonghyun can never unsee where he’s gone wrong, and telling him to fix that is like telling him to fix himself, or that he can’t help it if he doesn’t take bad things well. That Taemin hasn’t done anything to make people hate him, the way Jonghyun has. That Jonghyun always thinks if he hates himself more, hates himself first, it’ll hurt less. That it never does.

Taemin probably guesses a lot of that. Voice all twisted up, he says, “What would you say if it was my photo, if it was me getting hate mail?”

Jonghyun’s heart aches.

“You’re not. I am.”

Maybe that’s not an answer, but Taemin’s done with questions, too. “I don’t know, maybe we should check out the stuff people send to SM. I bet there’re worse things about me. Shinee, too~”

Taemin’s trying so hard it probably hurts. Jonghyun wants to take him into his arms. He wants to take Taemin somewhere far away from all this, make Taemin stay with him forever. Everything he is, everything he’s feeling, everything inside him, he wants Taemin to have it.

But all he has for now is words.

“Don’t look, Taeminnie. You don’t have to,” he says. He means it with everything he’s got, and he does everything he can to show Taemin that, looking him right in the face, making him see. “It’s too late for me. Ignoring it now won’t make it go away.”

Taemin takes all that in.

“Jonghyun hyung,” he says, and that’s all for a while. It’s enough, it’s more than enough, Jonghyun’s name on his lips. But when Jonghyun tries to catch Taemin’s eye, Taemin meets his, so easily. “From now on, look only at me. Okay?”

Sooner than he should, Jonghyun says, “You stopped asking, and now you’re telling,” and his voice comes out so wrong, all rushed and strange.

Taemin doesn’t hate it, though. He just smiles at Jonghyun, smiles and smiles, until Jonghyun can’t help it. He smiles back.

“Tonight doesn’t count,” Taemin tells him, just this one last thing, and then he tries asking again. “What day would be good? Tomorrow?”

Their date.

Maybe Jonghyun’s heart bursts.

“Saturday.” 

 

They just have to get there first.

They only have a couple days left in the studio, and as many tracks left to record, but all that means is more time to practice. They’ve only just started trying to sing their way through the choreo, but they go through it morning and night every day, and they’ll go through it a thousand more times before "Sherlock" drops. Even if the company okayed it, there’s no way Mnet will let them do their comeback stage live, but still. There’s the show after that, and the one after that. SM will give in soon enough, and then it’s up to the broadcasting stations to turn down the MR, turn on their microphones, give them a chance.

They have to take it. They have to win, their way.

“This was our first, right?”

Like he’s read Jonghyun’s mind, Jinki holds the trophy aloft, probably getting fingerprints all over it.

“Like you don’t remember?” Jonghyun sighs. “Love Like Oxygen” was a million years ago now, but Jonghyun still does, like yesterday.

“I’m old, not senile,” Jinki says. He smiles, and Jonghyun knows exactly what’s coming. “How could I forget? You were crying your head off, I couldn’t get you to stop.”

“It was just that one time,” Jonghyun lies, like he always does. If he doesn’t cry anymore, it’s because the tears won’t come. He always feels like he’s going to.

Jinki sees right through him, but he doesn’t call Jonghyun on it. Just stows it into the box and moves on to the next trophy. Says to his reflection in it, “Who knows, maybe hyung will do all the crying this time. It’s been so long since Lucifer, things will probably get weird.”

This whole packing up the last four years of their lives thing is weird enough. The company hired movers to take care of the big stuff, and but everything else is their problem. Today it’s their sound equipment and game systems and prizes, for the two of them at least. For Taemin, it’s literally anything else in the dorm, but Jonghyun couldn’t trust Jinki on his own either, and Manager Hyung’s gone to visit his mother, so here he is. Taemin’s in the next room with the other two, going through their bookcases, laughing their way through everything they find.

And now all of the sudden Kibum’s shouting for them.

“Hyung, come here. Hyung! For fuck’s sake. _Hyung!_ Hurry up already!”

When Jinki scrambles to his feet instead of shouting back _which hyung,_ Jonghyun follows him, because there’s strength in numbers, and it’s better to do what Kibum says sooner rather than later.

Kibum huffs impatiently, “Not you, him,” pushing Jinki aside, getting a hand between Jonghyun’s shoulder blades, shoving him forward. “Look at this.”

Once Jonghyun has time to figure out what he’s even looking at, sure. Which, it’s a photo album, laid open on the desk. Kibum doesn’t give him any time to figure out the next thing, which is why he should care. Clicking his tongue, dragging his finger and Jonghyun’s eyes across the page, he says loudly, “See?”

Jonghyun sees.

“It’s not the same photo, but it’s from the same day,” Kibum says. “If you want to compare it yourself fine, but I have an eye for this kind of thing. See, same hair cut, same outfit, same background, just zoomed out.”

Jonghyun sees all right.

There’s him, sitting at a table, plate of tonkatsu at his mercy, v signs, giant smile, arm slung around Taemin’s shoulders. Taemin’s not even looking at the camera, huddled and awkward, and Kibum keeps making fun of Jonghyun’s haircut, but Taemin’s is so much worse. It’s so bad it’s cute. Jonghyun doesn’t even realize he’s smiling until Taemin shoulders in front of Kibum, pressing his fingertips over his face in the photo, like he’s trying to smush it out of existence.

Jonghyun would love to make fun of him, but the same Taemin’s in the next photo over too, and there’s Kibum too, sitting on his other side, so he sticks with the facts for now. “So you guys were there, too.”

The whole page is more of the same, Minho and Jinki, the kids who debuted with f(x) and EXO, plus the kids who didn’t make it, all talking, laughing, eating. Where they’re supposed to be, what they’re doing there, if it means anything to him at all…he’ll get there next.

“Looks like it,” Kibum says, eyeing Jonghyun like he’s waiting for the rest of his reaction. “You remember, after evals sometimes, sunbaes used to take us all out to eat. I think that’s what this was.”

“Wow, it’s been years.” Jinki crowds in behind Jonghyun to take a closer look. “I probably saw these people everyday, but I don’t even recognize half of them. I heard the old training center’s an office building now, too.” It will be. Last time Jonghyun drove by it, it was still under renovation. But no one cares, least of all Jinki. He points himself out, long shaggy hair, derpy grin, and says, “Who’s that loser? There’s no way he could have become an idol, right~?”

Just Jinki being Jinki. Taemin laughs, Kibum sighs, and Minho puts on his you’re-embarrassing-me face.

“I mean, most of them dropped out,” Minho reminds him. “I know a lot of hyungs who didn’t make the cut for our group did. And when SNSD debuted, it got really bad. There was this one girl who started cutting herself.”

Jonghyun remembers. In some ways, his life as an idol is easier than his life as a trainee was, because each day he starts somewhere. Back then he’d wake up with the ceiling closing in, waiting for the breath to hit his body so he could get up and run some more. If he’d slept, if he hadn’t spent the night in the practice room, headphones keeping his thoughts out, ripping his voice to shreds. The day Lee Sooman told him he’d made it was the best day of his life. He barely made it to the bathroom before he broke down. He would have cried for years and years if Taemin hadn’t found him, and told him he was supposed to be happy. 

“I don’t recognize you guys even,” Taemin says now. “I thought you looked so old back then, but now you look like babies. Look at Minho hyung~”

“Look who’s talking.” Minho pinches Taemin’s cheek. “I didn’t realize you were such a brat until it was too late. For the longest time I thought you couldn’t talk.”

“I could, I just didn’t.”

Taemin shoots another look at Jonghyun, like he’s supposed to be defending him instead of laughing at him. Like Taemin’s not being a total brat right now, or something.

“The only things I could get you to say to me for like a year and a half were yes and no,” Jonghyun says.

Kibum scoffs. “Aigoo, what are you complaining about? I didn’t even get that much, he’d just nod or shake his head at me. You’re the only one he ever talked to first.”

Jonghyun sneaks Taemin a smile, gets one back in half a second, so sweet his feelings kind of explode. 

And then Jinki has to go and ruin it. “He talked to me, too, after that first time.” 

“That one doesn’t count,” Taemin says, a little too quickly.

Jonghyun knows the story. Jinki found Taemin singing on the roof, played super hyung and saved Taemin from dying of embarrassment, the way he does again now. 

“Honestly, I was just relieved it wasn’t the other way around, I went up there to do the same thing,” Jinki says. “It was okay after that, right? It was nice.”

“I really couldn’t sing.”

Jinki smiles, pets Taemin’s hair.

“Now look at you.”

“What about me, Taemin-ah, what did you think of me when we first met?” Taemin blinks, face going blank, and Jonghyun’s not sure if he’s being too much, if he should shut up, but he doesn’t feel like being good. “I told you, earlier.”

Taemin goes pink.

“I did too,” he says, kind of strangled. He meets Jonghyun’s eyes just to give him this look like _what do you think, do you really need me to tell you you’re my first love,_ but then he says it again anyway. “I liked you. You were cool.” His words catch up with him little by little. First his ears glow red, and then his hands twist together, and then he can’t take it anymore, and he blurts out, “What about you two?”

Kibum and Minho. Great. Jinki doesn’t step in, so Jonghyun bites his tongue too. Waits them out.

“Just tell the truth, and I won’t get mad,” Kibum says airily.

Minho takes him at his word and comes right out with it. “I liked you fine until you opened your mouth.” Kibum laughs out loud, but it’s for real, he looks as surprised as Minho. And then Minho gets a little braver. “That’s the weirdest thing about you. You’re the most honest person I know, but you say so many things you don’t mean.”

“It’s called reacting,” Kibum retorts, straightening his face, but he can’t keep the smile off it. “You can’t lie, either, not with your face. But you never even try.” He catches Minho’s eye. Hesitates, like he’s not sure how to say this, but that’s never stopped him before, and it doesn’t now. “I don’t like liars, liars are the worst.”

Minho breaks into his movie star smile.

“Right? Honesty hurts up front, but it’s better in the long run. Otherwise you’re just faking it.”

That’s…that?

From another planet Jinki says, “Oh! Taemin-ah. Smoking girl. Remember?”

Which, what?

Taemin looks like he does remember, though, so Jonghyun prompts him, “Smoking girl?” 

“Hyung named her that—”

“After that guy in the X-Files.”

“Her real one doesn’t matter.” Taemin’s probably just saying that because he can’t remember it, but he moves right along to the good stuff. “She used to come up to the roof and smoke every day. Like, chain smoking.”

Jonghyun’s kind of at a loss.

“How old was she? She must have been a scary kid.”

“I tried talking to her once, since it worked with Taeminnie. She put me back in my place. She ignored me,” Jinki tells him, with this faraway look on his face. “She was probably just trying to de-stress. Some people went up there to cry, some people yelled. She smoked.” Jinki comes back down to earth, shrugs. “And then she stopped showing up.”

“And she’s not in any of these photos?” Jonghyun presses.

“You can’t remember her face either?” Taemin says, surprised. Which, Jonghyun’s not in on the joke, he doesn’t know who Smoking Girl even is. It’s like five years too late to be getting annoyed with Taemin for leaving him out, but whatever, Taemin won’t notice anyway. And all he says is, “You even talked to her once, hyung. You bummed a cigarette off her, that’s how I found out you smoke.”

Jonghyun doesn’t even remember that. Then again, he’s not so sure he would, and there’s no way Taemin would’ve said anything to him back then. He’s been sticking his tongue in Jonghyun’s mouth for half a month now, and he only told Jonghyun yesterday that he tastes gross after he’s smoked.

He’s still figuring out a way to say any of that in front of other people when Kibum gets all caught up, and butts in loudly. “Oh my God, who cares. You guys are so off topic. Whoever took that photo, they could be right here. Take a good look, hyung.” He gives Jonghyun like five seconds to peel his eyes off Taemin, and then he does it for him, turning Jonghyun’s head back around, pushing it down, so all that’s left is the page of photos in front of him. “Anybody you pissed off? Anybody who had a problem with you? Anybody with a thing for you?”

Jonghyun hasn’t seen any of these kids in forever, and here they’re frozen in time. He doesn’t know what they grew up to look like, what they’re doing with their lives, if they’re happier now. If it brings them back, seeing Shinee on TV, hearing their voices on the radio. What would be worse, remembering the good things or the bad, all the times they dreamed of debuting, or the time they knew they wouldn’t.

He looks. He looks and looks, but the only faces that stand out to Jonghyun are the faces he still sees every day. Taemin. Jinki and Kibum and Minho.

And then suddenly he’s saying, “I’m glad it was you guys. I’m glad we debuted together.”

_I’m happy you guys made it too, and I’m happy you’re here with me. I’m happy we’re still making memories together. I couldn’t have gotten this far without you. I wouldn’t have gotten anywhere. I’d be alone._

“For me it’s Shinee or nothing.”

 

Jonghyun doesn’t have to see Scary Noona again until Saturday morning, when they return to the studio to take group shots. He’s had days to work up to this, days to forget about it, tell himself he’s crazy, but when the coordi noonas herd them over to the make up table, he still has to make himself look at her.

She looks right back like nothing happened, like she never said anything weird. And it looks like she has nothing to say to him now, glowering and dark-eyed and silent. But then Jinki’s there, settling in at her station and setting Jonghyun free with a smile and a hand on his shoulder. When Jonghyun turns away he feels her eyes on the back of his head, and maybe there are worse things in the back of her throat.

First good thing that comes to mind, he says. “What day do you graduate, Taeminnie?”

Taemin tries thinking about it, scrunches his face up until the coordi noona working on him clucks her tongue, and he has to give up. “I don’t know. I can’t go anyway.”

“When are your finals?”

“Next week,” Taemin replies. “The first one’s on Monday but I’d have to ask Manager Hyung about the rest.”

The next thing Jonghyun should probably ask is if Taemin’s really okay going out with him tonight, but even if Taemin never says what he should, there’s always a first time. Taemin might say he’d better study instead, and Jonghyun doesn’t think he can take that right now.

He chooses silence instead. It’s not as bad as Scary Noona’s from before, and then it’s not bad at all, because Taemin starts up again, does all the talking, talks and talks. Jongin ripped his pants dancing the other day. All his mom ever wants to talk about is _I Live in Cheongdam-dong,_ but none of it’s funny secondhand. Jonghyun’s sexy face looks so dumb, he shouldn’t try so hard for this photo shoot. Jonghyun looks like he’s gained weight since last time, and even if it’s all muscle, when he’s photographed it’ll look like it’s all fat. Jonghyun this. Jonghyun that.

Jonghyun pinches Taemin’s cheek, make up or no. Hard. Taemin smiles for him, and Jonghyun knows all he’s really trying to say is, _Don’t think about Scary Noona,_ and _You’re okay, right, hyung?_

And then it’s time, and Jonghyun gets to lie around and look as stupid as Taemin said and not think for a while. If Scary Noona’s looking at him, it’s because all the coordi noonas are. It’s because it’s their job. And the others are right there, Taemin’s right there, close enough to touch, so soft and warm and right. there. Scary Noona’s eyes shouldn’t be crawling under his skin like this, eating him alive.

He’s okay.

And then they hit a break and just like that, he’s not. He thinks maybe he should apologize to her first. He thinks he’s a lot of other things, freaked out, scared, whatever, but he knows he’s sorry. And he doesn’t think she does.

But before he can look for her, she finds him, makeup brush in hand.

Before he can open his mouth, she steals his words, hand closing over his shoulder, fingers like claws, digging in, pushing him forward.

And before he knows what’s happening, she’s led him away from the others. She doesn’t tell him the things she should, like _the lighting’s bad over here,_ or _you need more than a touch up,_ or _I’m not going to hurt you._ His heart is in his throat and he’s choking on it and he can’t breathe and he’s not sure how his legs are moving, how the fuck this is real, and he can’t breathe. He can’t breathe. On and on and on, until they’re alone in the other room, in front of the mirror, and he can see her face again. His, too, and somehow neither of them look crazy, and what the fuck what the fuck.

She meets his eyes in the mirror. Then turns to say to the real him, “I have something for you.”

“Noona,” which, good, he still has his voice, but what the fuck is he supposed to say. “I’m sorry?” Yeah. He is, too, he’s, “So fucking sorry. I’m sorry I said that about you, I’m sorry I was so mean. I’m sorry I called you that.”

She doesn’t give a fuck, and when he reaches for her it’s too late, she shrugs him off like nothing, and he’d have to hurt her to stop her, and she’s already gone for her bag, and.

“Jonghyunnie?”

Jinki.

“The other noonas are looking for you. Um. Minho ripped his shirt, they sent me to find you. They said you’d know what to do, it’s an emergency, Jonghyunnie’s face isn’t.”

Thank God, thank god thank god thank god. Jonghyun’s not sure he can get over to him, he’s not sure his legs won’t betray him now that he needs them, but Jinki crosses the room in two seconds, and Jonghyun’s okay. Probably. Jinki’s such a shitty liar, but she won’t do anything crazy anymore, right?

Wrong.

She ignores them, rummaging through her stuff, sending half it flying, scissors, hairbrush, pens, checkbook, phone charger, and then finally _it._

“Hyung!”

So many things happen at once. Taemin darts towards him. She turns on them. Jinki shoves in front of Jonghyun, getting between them, and Jonghyun falls back into Taemin. The floor rushes up to meet them, tangle of legs, air knocked out of his lungs, low pained cry that didn’t come from him. _Taemin._

“Did I hurt you, are you hurt? Taeminnie?” As soon as his muscles kick in he scrambles onto his hands and knees, twists around. Taemin’s flat on his back, face in his hands, but when Jonghyun takes his wrists in his hands, pulls them away, there’s nothing in his face Jonghyun’s heart can’t take. His butt is probably killing him. His back, too. Jonghyun probably crushed him. “Taeminnie?”

Of all things, Taemin cracks a smile. He doesn’t need Jonghyun’s help to sit up, but he takes it, making a face, saying, “What about you, you fatso,” and that’s enough. Other things are allowed to exist again.

Jinki.

“Jonghyun-ah, you need to see this.”

And Scary Noona.

And then there’s the thing in her hands, too, and Jinki’s voice just now told him everything he needed to know. He’s ready when he sees the photograph again.

“I found this thing in my mail this morning,” she says, and he can tell it’s taking a lot out of her, trying to slow herself down, make herself understood. “I didn’t know who I should tell first, you or the company, or Joomin-ssi…but it’s your photo.”

He’s not sure if he wants her answer, but he has to ask. “Is there anything written on the back?”

She hands it to him, saying, “That’s what freaked me out,” and lets him see for himself why.

BEAUTY IS SKIN DEEP

TURN HIM INSIDE OUT

“I don’t know what that means, if it means to hurt you. I don’t know. It sounds fucked up.”

“It doesn’t just sound like it,” Jinki says from across the universe, but somehow he’s right here, helping Jonghyun into a chair. “Jonghyunnie? You want me to get Manager Hyung?”

Taemin tries to snatch the photo out of his hands, so warm and soft, leaning into his side. It’s so easy to keep it from him, so hard to keep himself from pulling Taemin down into his lap and hiding in his neck until this goes away. But his heart is slowing down now, and his brain is kicking in, and Scary Noona probably has it worse than him right now. He can’t forget the first time he got one of these fucking things in the mail, and this one is so much crazier.

“Thanks,” he says to her. Her eyes flare and then her mouth goes small and tight, almost like she’s swallowing a laugh, and he’s not sure that would be any crazier than what he just said. But this next thing is more important, anyway. “I meant what I said earlier, I am sorry. Really, really. I just said whatever I wanted, I never stopped to think about how you’d feel, hearing it.”

She snaps a little. “Shouldn’t you be worried about yourself right now?” Deep breath, and she says more calmly, “There was no return address, but somebody out there sent this to me. They did— _that_ —to your picture. They wrote this crazy stuff. They’re crazy.”

That’s as many words as she’s used all year. She really is freaking out.

“It’s not the first one.” That’s pretty much all Jonghyun can say at this point. “It’s the seventh.”

He leaves Jinki fill her in on the rest, and drags Taemin out into the sunlight, only stopping for his coat. He bundles Taemin into it, and maybe feels him up a little when he digs in his pockets searching for cigarettes. Taemin doesn’t make a face when he lights up, and he lets Jonghyun smoke in peace, sitting on his haunches next to him. He lets Jonghyun lay his head on his shoulder, too, and he lets Jonghyun stare all he wants, for as long as he wants, for as long as it takes Jonghyun to overcome his fear, try closing his eyes.

And when he gets there finally, all he sees is Taemin.

That’s where Manager Hyung finds them.

 

Manager Hyung doesn’t make Jonghyun talk about it on the ride home, and when they get there, Taemin doesn’t make him ask. He doesn’t even let him take his coat and shoes off before he’s saying loud enough for the others to hear, “I’m so hungry, hyung. I’m starving. You’ll buy me food, right~?” and pushing Jonghyun back out the door.

Once they reach Jonghyun’s car, Taemin tells him, “We don’t have to eat, I was just saying that,” like that wasn’t two hundred percent obvious. He shifts his weight, bites his lip, stares into Jonghyun’s face. “Where do you want to go? Anywhere?”

Jonghyun takes him to the river, like he’d said he would.

Part of him wants to drag Taemin into the backseat, take everything Taemin has to give him, lose himself in Taemin’s body. Instead he says, “It’s only thirty out, Taeminnie. You forgot your hat, you can have mine,” and puts it on for him, and Taemin looks so cute and sweet Jonghyun probably shouldn’t be getting thoughts this dirty. He controls himself, though. Steps out into the night.

Taemin meets him halfway, and bites one of his gloves off to take Jonghyun’s hand.

They walk for a while.

With every step Jonghyun’s body feels a little lighter, and he can breathe a little easier, and everything he can think to say to Taemin might ruin it.

“Let’s not talk about anything bad,” Jonghyun says in a rush, and then it’s out there, and Taemin’s eyes are on him, and he has to explain himself. “I think I would be okay not talking, if it’s with you.”

Taemin smiles at him. “You can’t not talk, hyung.”

“I can’t shut up, you mean?”

Taemin doesn’t deny it, he doesn’t even stop himself from laughing, but then, he probably knows Jonghyun can’t even get mad, and he won’t do anything. Just play with Taemin’s fingers, smile at his feet, the moon, the river, anything but Taemin himself.

Taemin bumps his shoulder. “It’s okay, I don’t mind listening.”

Which, Taemin? _Listening?_

Jonghyun gets as far as, “Taemin-ah,” before his voice gives him away, and now he’s in trouble. Taemin plays hard to get from two arm lengths away, testing Jonghyun’s hold on him, huffing like, _fine then._

Taemin stumbles a little when he pulls him in, but Jonghyun’s there. Steadying him, and Taemin bites back a smile. Slipping an arm around his waist, and Taemin forgets he’s supposed to be annoyed, sticking to his side, telling Jonghyun, “I just like hearing your voice.”

“I use it to say things.” Jonghyun can’t pinch him or tickle him or anything, not through three layers. “You don’t care about that part?”

“I guess not,” is all Taemin has to say. And then, throwing Jonghyun an evil look, “At least not according to you~”

Jonghyun can’t handle him. He really can’t.

“You think you’re so cute.”

Taemin sees right through him. “You think I am too, you said so.”

“You are cute. You’re the cutest,” Jonghyun says again helplessly. “You’re only this cute when you’re with me, right? You don’t do this to other people?” And okay, Jonghyun’s gone to pieces, but how is he supposed to put himself back together with Taemin right here, giving him a look, the one that says _hyung, stop it._ Like Jonghyun’s the problem. “Forget it. You can’t help it.”

Taemin takes his hand again, lacing their fingers together.

Says, “It’s not me, though, it’s you. You’re the only one who sees me like this. I don’t even see it in myself.” Jonghyun thinks maybe that’s all. He doesn’t know what to think, if he should be sorry, if Taemin hates it. Taemin must see some of that in his face, because he smiles, goes on, “I didn’t mean anything bad, hyung. I like how you look at me,” and then, hiding his face, ear glowing red, “I like you.”

Jonghyun leans in and kisses him on the cheek.

“How do you look at me?” he says, heart beating a little faster. “Hyung?”

“Mm.”

“That’s it?”

Street light, moonlight, street light, and Taemin’s making that dumb face that says he’s thinking about it. Jonghyun lets him have as long as he needs. Holds on.

And then, after all that, finally Taemin says, “Weird?” But that’s just the start, and now Jonghyun’s back to waiting while Taemin gets unstuck, figures him out. Jonghyun doesn’t care if Taemin has to take him apart to do it, Taemin’s so beautiful right now, and his hand is so warm. “You never know what you want unless you know you can’t have it, and you hate being told what to do…but you still try harder than anyone I know. I just wish you didn’t try to do it on your own.”

“As long as you like me,” Jonghyun says, sooner than he can speak.

Taemin said it a minute ago, but he says it again now, “I like you,” and then, in a voice Jonghyun’s never heard before, “Jonghyun hyung.” Taemin squeezes his hand. “Try liking yourself, okay?”

“Do you like yourself?”

Jonghyun wants to take it back the second it’s out of his mouth, terrified Taemin might say no, because he could, and Jonghyun doesn’t know what he’ll do to him if he does.

“Not all the time? But that’s impossible, nobody does,” Taemin replies, like that much is obvious. That’s close enough to the answer Jonghyun doesn’t want to hear that he can hardly take it. Taemin catches Jonghyun’s eye, and now Jonghyun’s the one who’d give anything to hide, not sure if his face is giving him away. “That doesn’t mean you should go looking for reasons to hate yourself, either.”

Jonghyun wishes Taemin could do all his thinking for him, that he could let Taemin inside his head, his heart, see if Taemin could make him make sense. He wishes he could _be_ Taemin. But then he wouldn’t have Taemin here with him now, standing next to him, smiling at him, hand in his.

He wouldn’t have Taemin’s love.

“I’m trying.”

They keep walking. For the first time in his life Jonghyun longs for spring, for bugs and birds, night sounds, for the trees to whisper and sigh. He’s fine with silence, and he likes the cold, but Taemin doesn’t. And maybe Jonghyun thinks he’d be okay like this forever, but there’s no such thing, anyway. He’s pretty sure they have a schedule tomorrow morning, and he can’t keep Taemin out all night, and it’s better Jonghyun doesn’t make Taemin choose between him and sleep, because Taemin could say he likes Jonghyun a million times, and Jonghyun would still lose.

They head back.

Jonghyun drags his feet, and Taemin doesn’t do anything about it. He doesn’t do anything about anything until they reach the car, and then he goes straight for the backseat, playing with the door handle, playing with Jonghyun’s fingers. Jonghyun has to squeeze his hand, tug at him, say, “Taemin-ah,” just to get him to meet his eyes again, and then Taemin does, and Jonghyun has no idea what was supposed to come next. Taemin’s so cute, bright red, so sweet and shy, smiling through it, putting himself out there for Jonghyun to take.

Jonghyun doesn’t realize he’s smiling back until he tries to pull away and Taemin holds on tight, and it’s already out of his mouth. “I’ll turn the heat on.”

Taemin’s not too into that, not if it means letting go. He shoots Jonghyun the kind of look that makes him weak, pouty and bratty, laughing at him on the inside. “You can keep me warm.”

“That too.”

By the time Jonghyun ducks into the driver’s seat to start the engine, fiddle with the temperature, Taemin’s already in the rear view mirror, jacket off, telling him, “It was fine in here before,” and, “If you turn it up it’ll get too hot for you, hyung,” and, “Hyuuuung~” And as soon as he slides into the backseat, Taemin’s on him, kissing him and kissing him and kissing him, hands everywhere, like he couldn’t wait another second, like his whole night was leading up to this.

Jonghyun tries to slow him down, holding him through it, holding himself back, letting Taemin bite and lick his mouth open, then teasing Taemin’s tongue with his own, drawing it into his mouth and sucking on it. Taemin moans, pressing closer, pulling Jonghyun’s hair, hard enough to hurt, and that’s all it takes, Jonghyun’s already getting hard for him. Taemin relaxes into him, slowly, slowly, holding Jonghyun’s face in his hands, burning it up, sighing into his mouth, leaning his forehead into Jonghyun’s as he draws away to breathe. So pretty Jonghyun’s heart stops, dark eyes, flushed cheeks, soft pink lips.

“Taeminnie.” That’s all Jonghyun knows how to say. “Taeminnie.”

Next thing, Jonghyun’s tongue is in Taemin’s mouth and Taemin’s in his arms, pushing into his hands when Jonghyun finds skin, and Jonghyun can’t get enough, up Taemin’s shirt, under his waistband, so soft and warm everywhere. He takes Taemin by the hips and pulls him close, across his thighs, tight to his body. Taemin gets with the program, settling into his lap, kissing Jonghyun back. Kissing him everywhere, his face, his neck, pulling at his shirt, slipping his fingers under Jonghyun’s collar, until Jonghyun fists his hands in his hair, drags him up, takes his mouth again. Taemin tastes like mint, and his touch is so sweet Jonghyun burns for it, and every sound he gets out of Taemin is like oxygen, it’s like he needs them to live, little hitched breaths, low broken moans, his own name.

“Jonghyun hyung.”

Hyung.

It takes every last thing Jonghyun’s got to pull away.

“We can’t, Taeminnie,” he says, and his voice sounds so weird to his own ears, rough and breathless. “Not here.”

Taemin groans, burying his head in Jonghyun’s neck. All he does is breathe, close and hot, lips brushing Jonghyun’s skin, but that’s as much as Jonghyun can take. He takes Taemin’s face in his hands, and then he’s all Jonghyun can see again, and maybe that’s worse, because the way Taemin’s looking at him sets his whole body on fire.

“You know where this is going,” he says. He doesn’t need to ask, doesn’t wait for Taemin to say anything, when the answer’s right there in his face. “You’ve never gone this far before.”

Taemin tenses against him, and all Jonghyun can do for him is hold his eyes, keep his head up, until Taemin smiles a little, relaxes a little. But then he says it anyway, “It’s that obvious?” and if Taemin thinks stopping means he did something wrong, that it’s _him,_ Jonghyun doesn’t know what he’ll do to him. He won’t let him.

He leans in and presses his lips to Taemin’s. Taemin’s smile widens, breath catching, and Jonghyun lets him have his mouth, lets Taemin play with him all he wants, stick his tongue inside, fuck in deep. Lets him know how much he likes it, moaning, tangling his fingers in Taemin’s hair, holding on tight.

And when Taemin pulls back to breathe, Jonghyun follows him, nudging his nose against Taemin’s, lips brushing, flirting, teasing, until Taemin presses in again and they’re kissing, wet and messy and open-mouthed, and Jonghyun has to stop, Taemin won’t, it has to be him, but he can’t. Clutching Taemin to him, grinding into his thigh, eating every little sound Taemin makes, hotter and hotter and hotter—

“I don’t need you to hold back, hyung,” Taemin half says, half moans into his mouth. 

“Taemin-ah…”

“I’ve already done it to myself, everything, like a million times.”

… _What?_

Jonghyun’s head explodes and his dick throbs and he’s harder than he’s ever been in his life.

“Everything.” He’s not sure if he’s asking, if he could even handle that, but Taemin can’t give him an answer anyway, now that his own words have caught up to him. Jonghyun has no words. He’s not sure he still knows how to talk. But then, “Did you think of me?” and somehow Jonghyun thought out loud. 

Before he can even try to take it back, talk himself into it, Taemin nods into his neck. Makes him burn.

“What did I do to you, baby?” Jonghyun doesn’t know what the fuck he’s saying, out of control, out of his mind, blood rushing in his ears. “Kiss you?” Kissing every part of Taemin his mouth can reach, his hair, his neck, his shoulder, yanking his collar aside, sinking his teeth into Taemin’s skin. “Touch you?” Passing his hands down Taemin’s spine, pulling him in against him, licking Taemin’s ear. “Finger you?” Cupping his ass, squeezing it, spreading his cheeks, Taemin at his fingertips, so hot, so greedy for him, moaning, pressing into Jonghyun’s touch. Jonghyun lifts him up, drags him closer, closer, until Taemin’s sitting on his dick. Jonghyun’s so hard he can taste it. “Fuck you?”

Taemin sobs, grinding into Jonghyun, dick pressing into his stomach.

_“Please.”_

Too far.

“Taemin-ah.” Jonghyun finds it in himself to keep his hips still, loosen his hold on Taemin. Talk sense into them both, rubbing circles into Taemin’s back, catching his eye. “The real thing is different. If I don’t do it right, I’ll hurt you. Even if I do, it’ll still hurt a little,” he says, as gently as he can. “And the me in your head already knew everything you like, but I won’t.” Taemin gives him this look like, _how many times do I have to tell you I like_ you? And Jonghyun gives him one of his own, searching for the right words, in case Taemin can’t read them in his face. “It’ll be my first time with you, too.”

If he’s greedy, if he’s selfish, if he rushes this, he’ll get it wrong, he’ll ruin it. And maybe Taemin wants it, and he’d take it, he’d do anything, _anything,_ and Jonghyun can’t breathe for wanting him…but Jonghyun wants more, for Taemin, and for himself. He wants to give Taemin all of himself, make Taemin forget everything else, take him apart and put him back together, make him his. Stay inside Taemin forever, his body, his thoughts, his heart. 

Taemin takes it badly, sitting back, heavy and warm on Jonghyun’s thighs, avoiding his eyes, fingers caught in Jonghyun’s shirt. Making a face like the words taste sour, he says, “I guess I’ll just have to wait for you, if that’s how you’re gonna be.”

Jonghyun brushes his knuckles across Taemin’s cheek, ducks in for a kiss, soft and lingering. Taemin’s hands clench into fists, and Taemin moans, leans into it. Bites him. And when he opens his eyes Taemin’s looking at him again, dark eyes, wet open mouth, hot little breaths on Jonghyun’s lips.

“You think I don’t want you, or something?” Jonghyun says. He’d say anything. Whatever Taemin wants. “I want you. All the time, everywhere we go, all I have to do is look at you, or touch you, or smell your shampoo. You make me so crazy, you don’t even know what you do to me.”

_I don’t know what I’d do to you, the way I’m feeling right now._

“I’ll wait, I said,” Taemin says, but he’s smiling now, shy and sweet, so beautiful Jonghyun’s heart flutters, so bright it’s like staring into the sun. Taemin kisses his lips, there and gone, and Jonghyun’s still not done staring when he lifts away. And then the next thing is, “We don’t have to fuck, it doesn’t have to count, just, please, hyung. Please,” and Jonghyun can’t win.

He doesn’t want to. He wants Taemin. Taemin, Taemin, Taemin.

When he pulls Taemin in this time, he’s not going to let go, gripping Taemin’s hips, tight enough to bruise maybe, too tight, putting him where he wants him, holding him there. Guiding him.

“Tell me you want me too,” he demands, Taemin’s hair catching in his mouth.

Taemin moves with him, on him, against him, onto Jonghyun’s dick, into his stomach. _Moans._ “I want you.”

“Tell me you love me.”

“I love you.”

“Say my name, and say it.” Jonghyun drags his hands up Taemin’s body, fingers catching in his shirt, soft smooth skin, slick with sweat, but Taemin’s eyes are up there. He takes Jonghyun’s breath away, flushed and panting, dazed, thighs squeezing Jonghyun tight, fingers biting into his shoulders, hips working, taking Jonghyun closer and closer and closer. Jonghyun combs his hair back from his face, smiles for him. “‘Taemin-ah, I love you.’ Like that.”

“Jonghyun-ah, I love you.”

Jonghyun’s whole body goes white hot. He presses his mouth to Taemin’s, wet and desperate, breathes with him. Holds him. Fucks and fucks and fucks into him. Wants to fuck him so badly, give it to Taemin, let him take what he wants, take Jonghyun in, so tiny and hot and tight, kissing Jonghyun’s dick through too much clothes, so close. He’s so close. He’s moaning, running his mouth, he doesn’t know what he’s saying, just that Taemin can hear, Taemin can see, just this _feeling._ Taemin. Taemin. Taemin.

Taemin cries out, bites Jonghyun’s shoulder, stiffens against him. Comes.

“Taeminnie.”

Jonghyun’s world goes white.

When he comes down, Taemin’s right where he left him, shifting his weight, getting comfortable, warm and solid, glowing. He lets Jonghyun draw him in, lets him rain kisses on his face, until he breaks into a smile, says, “You said all kinds of things, hyung.” He wrinkles his nose. “‘Baby?’”

He liked it just fine when Jonghyun said it. And he lets Jonghyun say all kinds of things now, and Jonghyun says whatever he wants. “What about you? I thought you were going to eat me.” And, “I don’t know if I can handle you, maybe I won’t be enough for you,” and, taking Taemin by the wrists, fending him off, “You’re mine, Taeminnie. I’ll be good, I’ll do everything from now on. Everything~”

Taemin kisses him quiet, finally. Jonghyun kisses him breathless.

He doesn’t know if it’s been a minute or a million years when Taemin climbs off him, out of the backseat, into the night. Jonghyun’s not sure his legs will be able to carry him until he’s got grass under his feet, big winter sky over his head.

Taemin peers at him over the car, still kind of dazed. “When are we moving again?”

Into their room.

Jonghyun smiles like crazy, so crazy he hides it behind his fist, turns to the stars, closer and warmer than before.

“One more week.”

 

Somehow after all that, the only thing on Taemin’s mind is food, so they end their night at the convenience store instead of the dorm. Jonghyun needs to shower pretty badly, but he needs Taemin more, so he sits around and feels gross and watches Taemin work his way through a mountain of triangle kimbap. And when Taemin peels the seaweed back along with the wrapper for the millionth time, it’s just an excuse for Jonghyun to take over. Feed him.

And then out of nowhere, Taemin says, “That’s the other thing, hyung.”

“What was the first thing?” Taemin doesn’t answer right away, but Jonghyun can feel his eyes on his face. Just as soon as he gets this fucking thing open…he lifts his head to meet them. Too late, now Taemin’s staring at the counter instead. “What is it, Taeminnie? Tell me. Mm?” Nudging him, finding his foot with his own. “Mm?”

“Just…I think we have to tell the others.” Taemin glances up at him, cornered look on his face, like Jonghyun is too much, making him use words, and he really, really doesn’t know how to talk about this. “About us.”

Taemin goes pink, goes back to the counter. There’s no one else around to hear, it’s just the two of them. And the clerk, but she doesn’t count. She doesn’t care what they say, she never does, and anyway, she’s busy with one of her giant textbooks.

“You mean we should,” Jonghyun says carefully. He doesn’t want to push too hard, but this next thing is something he has to ask. “Do you want to?”

His mouth goes dry and his heart hammers, but Taemin doesn’t make him wait, nods, says, “Mm,” and that’s all, but it’s enough. Jonghyun can breathe again.

“It’d feel like lying otherwise. And if we have to hide it at home, too…” Taemin trails off, searching Jonghyun’s face. “What about you, hyung, what do you want to do?”

“As long as you’ll be okay—”

“I’m not asking about me.”

There are a lot of things Jonghyun could say. That it’s early yet. That it’s too much to put on the three of them, when he and Taemin don’t know for sure it’ll last, and telling them is the same as telling Manager Hyung. He doesn’t want their relationship to be anybody else’s problem. He doesn’t want it to be a problem. And if things go wrong, if they break up, Jonghyun won’t be able to handle it, he already knows that. It’d be better to fall apart where nobody could see. 

“I want to tell them.”

As soon as it’s out there, Jonghyun wants to say it again and again. He wants to hide his face, because he doesn’t know what Taemin will see in it, but then he wants Taemin to look. See everything.

Taemin beams at him, reaches up to pinch his cheek, like he’s checking to make sure Jonghyun’s real. Shoots him little smiles once he goes back to his food, lets Jonghyun pet his hair, look his fill.

Anyway. “Jinki hyung already knows, kind of.”

Taemin looks betrayed. “You talked to him about me?”

“He had you all figured out, Taeminnie,” Jonghyun tells him. And then, before he can stop himself, smiling like a crazy person, “That’s how obvious you were~”

Taemin scrunches his nose up, and for a second there Jonghyun thinks he’s going to stick his tongue out, but instead he comes back at him with, “But you didn’t?”

Jonghyun wants to kiss that look right off his face. Instead he returns it with interest, and stuffs kimbap into Taemin’s mouth. It does no good, just makes Taemin smile harder, take Jonghyun’s thumb into his mouth, and then Jonghyun has to clean up his own mess, picking rice off Taemin cheek, his lips. And maybe Jonghyun did it to himself, but Taemin is too much for him, and he doesn’t even know it, chewing happily, pressing his thigh into Jonghyun’s, reaching for the next one before Jonghyun’s ready.

Jonghyun doesn’t know what to do with him. His phone buzzes to life against his leg, saving him from thinking about it too hard, giving him something safe to say out loud.

“Manager Hyung wants kimchi.” Taemin makes a face. He hates store bought kimchi. “Unless you want to share your mom’s like a normal person?” Taemin’s not into that idea, either, so maybe Jonghyun pushes, “You always do, with me,” and once it’s out there he goes a little crazy, hoping Taemin doesn’t give in, tell him he’s not the only one.

But all Taemin has to say to that is, “You don’t eat much,” and Jonghyun really doesn’t, at least not as much as the others, Jinki gets so desperate when he’s dieting, and it’s just kimchi. Jonghyun can let it go.

“Neither does Kibummie, though?”

Taemin gets this look on his face like he’s going to explode or laugh, but then he says it, “He’s not you,” and Jonghyun’s okay being crazy. It’s Taemin’s fault anyway, Taemin, with his eye smiles and his pretty hands, reaching for Jonghyun, smushing his cheeks together, squishing his smile. “You’re that happy? Aigoo.” He stands, leaning against Jonghyun to help him gather up their trash, plastic crinkling, fingertips brushing, secret looks. “Whenever you bring something from home, you let them eat all of it. I never get any.”

It’s not like Taemin’s not a pig. Jonghyun should probably just tell him that, but instead he throws the evidence out, and says faithfully, “I’ll save it all for you next time.”

Taemin takes that and moves on, and Jonghyun doesn’t bother leading him to the right section, lets him find it on his own. Down the wrong aisle for the fifth time, Jonghyun says, “If there’s something you want, I’ll cook for you, too.” Taemin takes all of two seconds to think about it, and then Jonghyun has to cut him off, in case Taemin makes him try and say no. “Something I can make, Taeminnie.”

They turn the corner and bingo. Kimchi.

Jonghyun sees Taemin reaching for it, and pretends not to, just so he can grab his hand. Taemin rewards him with a smile like sunshine, and says, “Forget it. You can just buy me food.”

If Taemin’s somehow missed the part where Jonghyun just did, or the part where he’s already fed Taemin millions and millions of times…Jonghyun will just take it however he wants.

“You mean I can take you out?” he says.

Taemin shoots him a look, and Jonghyun doesn’t know if he’s flustered, if he’s telling Jonghyun not to be so obvious, or if he’s so happy he doesn’t know what to do with himself. Like Jonghyun.

“Is this all for today?”

That’s right. The clerk.

“Yes, thank you.”

Taemin’s only an inch away, warm and soft and sleepy. Jonghyun barely has to reach out to touch his hand. When he plays with Taemin’s fingers, curls his around Taemin’s thumb, Taemin lets him get away with it, and maybe Jonghyun’s staring. And maybe he should stop, but Taemin’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen.

Taemin meets his eyes, reads his face. Smiles back.

And then suddenly, breaking glass.

Taemin jumps away from him, and the clerk’s already launched into clean up mode, kneeling on the floor, jar in shards at her fingertips, kimchi juice running like blood across the white tile.

Blood.

Her head jerks up when Jonghyun takes her hand. She doesn’t follow his eyes to the gash in her finger, the sliver of glass sticking out. And maybe Jonghyun flinches a little, pulling it out, but it’s like she can’t feel it, staring and staring into his face.

“It’s not bad,” he tells her, in case she’s just scared to look. “You’re only bleeding a little.”

She comes to life, yanking away so hard she almost falls on her butt, stammering, “I’m fine, I’m sorry, I’m fine,” and Jonghyun takes his first good look at her, pale and puffy-eyed, hiding behind her bangs. And all he’s left wondering is how long her shift must be, when it’s almost sunrise now.

“Band-Aids, Taeminnie.” Jonghyun reaches up to pat Taemin’s butt, and Taemin’s on it before he can add, “Hurry.”

“Really, I’m fine. I’m just, I was just clumsy. I’ll ring you up again.”

She makes to get up, stiff and awkward. Jonghyun grabs her arm. “I’ll pay for them, okay?”

Still, she hesitates. He tries a smile on her, the one he saves up for fan meetings. It doesn’t get that far with her, no smile back, no blush, no thank you, but she meets his eyes, bites her lip. Nods, just as Taemin returns and presses a hot pink box into Jonghyun’s hand.

Jonghyun wants to make fun of him so badly, because there’s no way Hello Kitty was his only option. Later. For now he keeps his eyes on her, peeling open the Band-Aid and reaching for her, but she doesn’t shrink away this time, lets him wrap it around her finger. And she puts up with it, too, when he decides there’s no point minding his own business right now.

“Money is important, but so is your body. If you don’t take care of it, working this hard, it gets to be too much.”

“What about you? I work all night, but you work all day,” she replies, out of nowhere. Jonghyun got to know her face over the past three years, but as far as he knows, she’s never even looked at his. Her words must have caught up with her too, because she turns away, shy all of the sudden. “You always come here so late. You wouldn’t if you could help it, right?”

Even in this neighborhood, the night shift probably comes with more creeps and drunks than regulars. Jonghyun’s sister used to work nights at the store down the block from their apartment, and his mom always made her bring a Taser.

“It’s not like that. Hyung likes to stay up all night,” Taemin says, leaning down to take her by the elbow, helping her to her feet. And before Jonghyun can say _Taeminnie hates going hungry,_ he sneaks Jonghyun a smile, says, “He’s lucky I like him more than sleep.”

Before she can stand on her own, she’s wrenching away from Taemin, clumsy with pain or nerves or exhaustion, whatever. Taemin stumbles, glass crunching underfoot, and Jonghyun’s heart flies up his throat, voice spiking, “Careful, Taemin-ah, you’ll hurt yourself,” but Jonghyun’s got him, it’s okay, Taemin’s okay. Jonghyun doesn’t have to get mad at her. Taemin gets his feet under him, and then he makes this face, all scrunched up and fit to burst, and it shouldn’t be so cute, because what if it’s something bad, and, “You’re okay, right?”

“My shoes aren’t. The kimchi...”

…Got them, stained red and wet through. Yuck.

“If it’s that bad, take them off,” Jonghyun says, rubbing Taemin’s shoulders, his back. He gives Taemin five seconds to do what he’s told, and then he tells him again. “Go ahead. Hyung will carry you the rest of the way.”

Right away, he wishes it weren’t just out to the car, that he’d parked blocks and blocks away, or something. Twenty feet of sidewalk isn’t long enough with Taemin on his back, all warm and soft and cute and bratty, kicking his feet and pulling at Jonghyun’s shirt, talking into his ear, smiling into his neck.

…He’ll take the stairs when they get home.

Taemin gives him a look. “It’s fine, hyung. Just gross.”

“Gross is bad,” Jonghyun insists, instead of leaving it, the way he probably should.

Taemin gets a little stuck, but that doesn’t stop him from opening his mouth to talk back, and—

“It’ll be 7800 won,” the clerk says from a million miles away.

Jonghyun turns, and finds her behind the counter again, mop and broom propped up next to her, fresh jar of kimchi waiting for them. He takes his wallet out on automatic, but as soon as he does his conscience kicks in. He goes for the broom instead.

She follows him with her eyes, and says, “Go on. I can handle it from here. My shift’s over in twenty minutes, anyway.”

And then of all things, she smiles at him, strange and bitter, like a secret no one’s supposed to see from this side. Shadows under her eyes, hair hanging in her face, clothes hanging off her, splattered blood red, and her hands are in fists on the countertop, knuckles white, clenched so tight it probably hurts. She’s got to stand there and take it for twenty more minutes, and that’s it, but Jonghyun knows something about waiting. It feels like an eternity, and it’s not like it leaves you when you’re done. It’ll follow her onto her bus, into her home, be there when she wakes up. Because tomorrow night, she’ll end up right here again. Welcome~, good night~, can I help you, I’m sorry, do you have any change, may I see some ID. That’s the only part of her he’s ever seen, until now.

She’s got this look on her face like she wants out, so badly it hurts.

He can’t look away.

 

He sends Taemin on ahead to the dorm without a good night kiss, and sticks around to clean up. When they step outside into the empty street, he asks her if she wants a ride home, and she doesn’t say no. Just asks him, “You don’t have to get back soon?” and then tells him, staring at her shadow, “I live in Jungnang-gu.”

He doesn’t get how this could be the closest convenience store to home she could find, and he’s not sure if he does or not, but, “There’s no traffic right now. It should be okay.”

The city flies by.

Jonghyun can’t remember the last time he had a stranger in his car and it’s eating at his nerves, but if she’s weirded out or scared of him at all, she’s hiding it pretty well, hunched against the window with her feet propped up on her suitcase of books. The first time he asked her about it, she told him it was easier on her shoulders to pull it around than carrying it on her back, but he’s not sure how one person could need that many books to get them through the night.

Finally he can’t take her silence anymore, so he fumbles for the radio, says, “You study as hard as you work, is that it?” And somehow that sounds worse out loud, and he should probably shut up, and, “You get bored and skip around?”

She doesn’t laugh or smile or roll her eyes. “I’ve failed the college entrance exam twice now. This year I have to make it.”

Ah. Jonghyun went and took it with Jinki after he got his GED, years ago now. He never had the time to study for it, and he’ll never have time to go to school.

“It’s February, and the test is in November,” he says, because that’s pretty much the only thing he can think of. He’s not sure he’d want to hear it, but he catches her eye in the rear view mirror, and it looks like keeping quiet might be worse. “You sure you’re not overdoing it?”

All that gets out of her is a sigh.

“It’s not me, it’s my parents. They set me up with a tutor first, but it’s been years and she hasn’t made me any smarter. This time they rented out a gosiwon.”

Again, Jonghyun has no idea what he’s supposed to say, and again, he’s pretty sure he has to say _something._ It was different with his parents. His father never cared what he did, until he dropped out and became an embarrassment, and his mother will never be embarrassed of him, no matter what happens. He chose this life for himself, so it’s up to him to live with it.

“What about you? You don’t want to go to college?”

She takes her time answering, watching Seoul wake up while he watches her think.

“I thought I’d be comfortable, just being alone,” she says finally, and he thinks that’s all. But it’s like she’s stuck between saying too little and saying too much, because suddenly she’s telling him, “I don’t want to move back in with them. I got another job and picked up another shift, just so I won’t have to.”

He doesn’t get that. Maybe he just doesn’t get her.

“You don’t get lonely, working like crazy?” he says. “I always think I won’t have time to, but then I always do.” She has nothing to say to that, she probably doesn’t get him either, so he gives up. Moves on to something easy. “What’s your name, anyway?”

She hesitates, eyeing him. “Seo Bom.”

“It suits you,” he says, and really, he’s only half-lying. It’s not springtime for her at the store, nor in this car, but he only ever sees her at her worst. When she’s got the sun on her face and she feels like trying, she’s probably really cute. Before she can decide he’s making fun of her, he makes fun of himself. “You aren’t going to ask mine? You don’t care?”

“You really think I don’t know?” she replies, and then out of nowhere she says it. “Jonghyun-ssi.” She smiles at his surprise. “I have eyes and ears too, you know.”

He never said she didn’t.

The first thing Jonghyun can think to say is, “I’m guessing you’re not a fan?” but he hates how it sounds, and as soon as it’s out of his mouth he’s already trying to explain himself. “I mean…you’ve been working at that store for three years. This is the first time you’ve said anything.”

He’s said things, to her. Those first couple weeks he got to know her face, he’d say hello, ask her how her day was, give her a real smile when she took his money. But she never noticed him trying, and it got easier and easier not to. He started showing up in sweatpants and glasses without worrying about her eyes, let himself say whatever he wanted to Taemin, whatever he wanted about the others, bought alcohol and cigarettes on his own instead of relying on Manager Hyung. It’s only starting to add up, what he must have looked like to her, the loser she met in person, versus Shinee’s Jonghyun.

What he looks like right now, cheeks burning, palms sweaty, stinky and gross and tired, yesterday’s mascara, another day of his life staring him in the face.

Like she’s read his mind, she says, “You were there first, I didn’t want to take that from you. And I wanted you to be comfortable around me.” Too late, she tells him to turn, and he’s so busy making it over in time he almost misses the next thing: “You can be yourself.”

He wants to tell her he’s never tried to be anything else. He wants to tell her he can’t help how people see him, and he wants to tell her how hard he tries. How hard it is, putting himself out there, being honest, and getting nothing back, just people talking over him, drowning him out, shutting him up, putting words in his mouth and thoughts in his head, puffing him up or looking down on him, turning him into someone he’s not. That he’d take all that over being alone, and if he could find some way to bring everything inside him into the open, his feelings, his fuck ups, his music, _Taemin,_ he’d do it in a heartbeat.

He tells himself to shut up instead, because all he knows about this girl are things he can see. It’s the same for her, with him. Whether she’s a fan or not, whether she’s been laughing at him, or really doesn’t care…they’ve never met. Not really.

It takes a million years and no time at all to find her place, but she lingers, so he does, too, idling in front of her building. He can wait for her to get her feet under her again. He’ll go through the same thing in an hour or so, that point where tomorrow becomes today.

“Do you want to come in for a bit? It’s not much, but I have coffee. You said you’ve been up all night,” she says. Again, right away, he can tell she’s bursting to say more, but when she does it comes out flat and strange. Just the facts, just, “You said you don’t sleep.”

She’s one to talk.

“I’m fine. Taeminnie likes to play with me, is all.”

Her face shutters, and he thinks that’s it, the only thing left is goodbye. But instead she tries again. “Then, to repay you for the ride…”

“Just worry about yourself, okay?” he says, cutting her off as gently as he can. “Seriously.”

“Jonghyun-ssi—”

“You can call me oppa if it’s easier, I don’t mind.”

Her own smile seems to catch her by surprise, awkward and secret, and she says into her hand, “I used to, all the time. I did everything when Shinee debuted.”

She could have said as much before, when he asked her if she was a fan, but whatever.

“Now you’re too embarrassed?”

“It’s not that,” she blurts out, eyes wide, like he should know better. She struggles with herself for a second, and he thinks maybe she’s about to laugh, but instead she says to her knees, “I was worried you wouldn’t make it, but that was stupid. SM is SM, and you’re you. And anyway, you have a million fans now, you don’t need me anymore.”

He doesn’t know what she wants to hear. What he could tell her, even. 

_I’m me, and I never believed I would make it. Does that make me stupid? Things aren’t any easier now, they just look like it. You don’t like our music anymore? Did you ever? It’s okay, you don’t have to support us._

“Thank you?”

She reaches out and grabs his wrist, makes him jump. She doesn’t let go, though, and she has this look on her face like he’s not listening, and she really really needs him to.

“If you get to tell me I work too hard, then I get to tell you: You work too hard. Every night I see you, you look so tired. I don’t look forward to the nights you don’t come, but I wish I did.” Of all things she smiles. It’s so out of place after her night, as bittersweet as the sun rising on his. She squeezes his wrist, and when he looks down the first thing he sees is the pink Band-Aid around her index finger, so stupidly pretty, just like Taemin. “Since you helped me, let me help you.”

Jonghyun doesn’t know what the fuck he’s supposed to say to that.

He doesn’t know how to say no.

And now it’s too late and he’s still trying to find a way, following her into the lobby, cracked linoleum, flickering lights, cranky ahjumma on her way down the stairs, cracking her jaw on a yawn, glaring at him like he’s some kind of creep, following a girl up to her room.

He only gives in once they start their climb, and lugging her suitcase up the steps is taking all his energy.

“This is my first time in a place like this,” he says, just trying to keep his voice down, hiding from his own echo.

He’s not like Taemin, he didn’t grow up in this life, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t things he missed out on. Avoided. A few of his high school friends moved into gosiwons after college, but he’s never had the time to visit them, and anyway, they know he spends all of it making money. 

“Do you ever wonder if you would’ve done well, if you hadn’t succeeded?” she says, not even glancing back at him, one foot in front of the other. “If you would’ve been happier?”

“If I hadn’t debuted, you mean?”

“Sometimes I don’t want to do well.” It’s not a reply. “Sometimes I just…I don’t know what I want. Nothing, maybe.”

Up, up, up.

Everything inside Jonghyun is telling him he shouldn’t be the one hearing these things, he shouldn’t be the one listening, but if she’s saying it to him she’d say it to anyone. She needs someone to talk to, _anyone,_ and what if there’s nobody else.

Right now, somehow, she has him.

“I gave up everything I had to get where I am now. If I hadn’t made it, I would’ve been screwed,” he says, just getting that out of the way before he goes on, “Bom-ssi. Your parents want what’s best for you, but if you don’t want it for yourself there’s no point.”

She doesn’t stop there, so he does, waits until they reach her floor and he can see her face again.

“People always say it doesn’t hurt to try, but it does. A lot. It’s harder on you, too. It never gets any easier.” And Jonghyun’s not just saying this, he means it with all his heart, but it’s so much harder believing his own words, instead of hiding, hating himself, making Taemin say it, making him make Jonghyun listen. He just hopes it’s different for her, he hopes he looks like he knows what he’s talking about. “If you don’t take the bad with the good, you’re left with nothing. That’s worse.” He takes a deep breath. “There has to be something you can do, something that makes you, you. Whatever that is, don’t let go of it. Don’t give up on yourself. Try.”

She just looks at him.

“It’s my life, so I should live it?”

He tries a smile on her. “Something like that.”

That’s all, until they reach her door. As she fumbles for her key, she asks him, “You want to know something funny?” in a voice that tells him there’s no point waiting for the punch line. The smile she gives him is worse, and then she says, “My dream was to be a singer, like you.” She punches in her passcode, forgets and uses her injured finger for the first number. Then the second, and the third. “I can’t sing.”

There are a lot of things he could say to that. That making it in this business has nothing to do with talent, and nobody’s born an idol. That it’s something you can learn. He put his everything into his voice, he had no life outside the practice room, noraebangs, and he’s still learning now. And then he thinks of Taemin, who debuted without a single vocal lesson. How far he’s come from those first days, when SM told him to stick to dancing, how hard he had to fight to get where he is now, how much work he put into his voice, all the times he must have cried where Jonghyun couldn’t see him—

But there’s nothing, because even if she’s wrong, she’s right. It’s too late for her to start putting the work in now. She’s too old, already.

Her door clicks open, just as his phone buzzes to life in his pocket. She starts, fingers clenched on the knob, and when he apologizes, shuffles a few feet away to pick up, he can feel her eyes on the back of his head. And it’s Taemin. Taemin never calls him. Taemin Taemin Taemin. 

“You didn’t go to bed?”

Taemin doesn’t bother saying hello, either. “Does she live in Suwon or something?”

He’s so cute.

“Sinnae-dong,” Jonghyun tells him. “It hasn’t even been an hour. You couldn’t stop thinking about me~? You can’t sleep without me there?” No answer, which is less cute. “Taeminnie?”

Short hard silence. Then Taemin says, all in a rush, “We have a schedule at six thirty. Manager Hyung says he doesn’t care where you are, but he wants to tell you where you will be, if you don’t want him to break your legs.”

There’s a scuffle, muffled laughter, and before Jonghyun can say anything, Taemin’s gone.

First thing, Manager Hyung says, “I won’t ask,” and tells Jonghyun they have a meeting with Creative, rattling off the who, what, when, where, why. Then he spends another minute repeating himself, hushing the others, walking back Taemin’s joke, trying to figure out if he should apologize for it or not. And then, finally, “If you’re going to be late, if you think you might be, I need to know now.”

“So you can figure out what to do with me?” Jonghyun says, just because he can, and there’s no one here to stop him. A quick glance at his watch tells him it’s six. He’ll have to speed. “I can give you as much time as you need~”

“It’s not funny,” Manager Hyung begins.

He nods at her, waves, and when she doesn’t move, he covers his phone to say, “I have to go. Work. Make sure you get some sleep, okay?” Turns away. “I was just kidding, I can make it in time. Put Taeminnie back on?”

Manager Hyung doesn’t put up much of a fight, and by the time Jonghyun hits the stairs he has Taemin breathing in his ear again, soft and even.

“Jinki hyung says he wants to talk next,” Taemin says. “Hang up first, hyung. Save yourself.”

Jonghyun doesn’t like that, not at all, which doesn’t explain why he’s smiling so hard, feet lighter with every step. But Taemin’s no good with phones anyway, and Jonghyun needs more time than he has right now to work on him.

“Then tell me you miss me,” he says.

“You’re so weird.” Then, in the stupidest voice ever, so stupid Jonghyun can just picture the face that comes with it, Taemin says, “I want to see you. Hurry up.”

Maybe Jonghyun’s heart explodes.

“I love you too.”

He hangs up and steps into the growing light.

 

The week crawls by. Taemin misses practice for his final exams and spends his nights making it up, so Jonghyun misses him all day, then throws himself on Taemin’s mercy. All he can do is live for the moment when Taemin finally cracks and lets Jonghyun shuttle him back to his car, and makes out with him in the SM parking lot. It’s too much to make Taemin come there, too, so he fills the rest of his time daydreaming about all the things he’s going to do to Taemin a week from now, when he has him in his bed.

And then there are the evenings, that in-between time where Taemin shuts himself up in their room and pretends to study, and Jonghyun pretends he’s not waiting for Taemin to give it up. And this time Jonghyun’s pretending to care while he and the others pack up the living room. And pretending to listen when Manager Hyung and Kibum tell him to be careful with that, if it doesn’t fit in that box don’t force it, use more packing material, blah blah blah. Aaaand pretending Jinki hasn’t spent their one afternoon off drinking soju out of a coffee mug, on top of everything else.

It’s harder to ignore Minho’s take on that. “Slow down, hyung,” and, “Doesn’t that make you lonely?” and, “Let’s eat after this, okay?”

“If you’re hungry, go ahead. It’s your life,” is all Jinki has to say to any of that, like Minho’s not just worried about getting something in his stomach besides alcohol. And then he goes back to the maze of boxes, all their shit. “This is mine. Four years doesn’t seem that long until you really look at it. Right?”

He’s not wrong. He’s just a little drunk.

And now he’s being random. “We should have a party when we move out.”

“House warming?” Kibum says.

“No. Here.” Jinki’s face tells them all that much should be obvious. “We have to say goodbye and I don’t want it to be sad.”

“That’s not something you can control, hyung,” Jonghyun says.

He doesn’t think he’s being mean until Minho shoots him a look. “Aigoo. What’s so hard about having a party?”

Kibum looks up from the box he’s been taping up, eyes flitting between the two of them, before settling on Jinki.

“We might as well, we have to clean out the fridge anyway. I think there are rice cakes left in the freezer…”

“I’ll buy you guys chicken,” Manager Hyung says, giving in before anybody asks him for anything.

And anyway, they’re the ones who’ll pay, working the calories off. Jonghyun leaves Kibum to point that out, and gets back to work. Records, CD’s, DVD’s, pictures, all stuff Jonghyun sees every day, all stuff he hasn’t looked at twice in years. He doesn’t now, either, just puts them where there’s room and moves on to the next thing, next, next. Time ticks down slower, slower, and Jonghyun would give anything if the dying light outside their windows would just die already.

“Jinki-yah, maybe you should sit down for a while.”

Maybe Manager Hyung should’ve said something to him before he opened the third bottle, because now it’s too late. But who cares. Maybe Jonghyun should go lie down in their room with Taemin. No touching. Just looking. Yeah.

But then all of the sudden there’s a crash, thud, breaking glass, and then sharper, louder, scarier, Kibum’s voice. _“What the fuck, hyung!”_

Taemin beats Jonghyun there, standing in the doorway of their room, but Kibum gets to Jinki first, steadying him, pulling him back by the shoulders, “You’ll fucking hurt yourself, I told you not to fucking drink, you fucking idiot.”

And there on the floor instead of the wall is the collage of their debut year, frame askew, paper peaking out, curled with age at the corners, littered with broken glass.

“You okay, hyung?” Minho says, trying to squeeze past Jonghyun, but if he doesn’t watch where he puts his feet he’s not going anywhere. 

“Huh? Yeah. It was heavier than I thought, is all,” Jinki says, like half a minute too late. When Manager Hyung shows up with the broom his eyes widen and his face falls. “I’m sorry, Joomin hyung. Your girlfriend made that, right?”

Manager Hyung rescues it from the wreckage, passing it to Minho for safekeeping. “I can get it reframed when we have more time.”

But Jonghyun’s stuck on that first part. “That’s from Moon Sokyung-ssi?”

“That’s not what it says here,” Minho says. For a second Jonghyun doesn’t get it, because all he sees is Shinee, Shinee, Shinee, but then Minho strains his voice into a falsetto and reads off the flipside, “‘Shinee, fighting! If things get tough, I hope you know that you’re not alone. Live your dreams! Love forever—’”

“Mikyungie gave it to me, to give to you guys,” Manager Hyung says over him, loud as he can, like he’ll shrivel up and die if Minho isn’t stopped. He catches the look on Jonghyun’s face. “It’s from one of the kids she tutored.”

Oh. Okay. That makes a lot more sense.

Kibum and Taemin could care less, crowding around Minho to read over his shoulder, so Jonghyun draws Jinki out of the way and gives Manager Hyung a hand. It’s easy enough to ignore Kibum when he clicks his tongue, frowns, does some judging. “That handwriting…”

But then Taemin says, “She left messages for all of us, see? ‘Kibummie oppa, fighting!’” and Jonghyun looks up in time to catch him smirking.

Kibum gives him a reaction. “Not Key? _Kibummie?_ Aigoo.”

“Minho, fighting, Taemin heart heart, Jinki heart heart…Jonghyun.” Taemin smiles so Jonghyun does too, but then Taemin goes on, just trying to keep his voice even, “Looks like Jonghyun was her bias. Jonghyun oppa~” Jonghyun’s ears stop working right around then, blood rushing, but Taemin bursts out laughing, keeps going. “I’ll never forget you. I’ll always remember what you—”

Jonghyun gets his hands on him. Tickles him until Taemin forgets how to talk, wheezing and gasping, wriggling against him, pushing his ass into Jonghyun’s crotch, and maybe this wasn’t such a good idea. Maybe it was the worst idea ever because he’s pretty sure Taemin’s setting him on fire just to watch him burn, and he’s pretty sure he knows Taemin knows what he’s doing to him. But it’s okay. The others are so busy being good, corralling Jinki and putting him to bed, that Jonghyun has time to tuck his boner into the waistband of his sweats and eye fuck Taemin into next week.

He doesn’t feel bad until Minho says later, over dinner, “I don’t get why Jinki hyung’s taking this so hard. We’re going up, not down.”

“You’re as dumb as him,” Kibum snaps.

He dumps his bowl and chopsticks in the sink and stalks off, but he has to pick his way through the maze of boxes before he can throw himself down in front of the TV, and by then all the drama’s gone.

Manager Hyung sighs, and when Jonghyun follows his eyes he sees nothing, just a stretch of wall, just empty space their faces used to fill a hundred times over. Just more of the same. In another week, they’ll be gone from this place, too, but by then Jonghyun’s not sure it’ll still feel like the place he lived every day of the last four years of his life. He’s not sure what their new place will be like, either. He wants to find out with everyone, with Taemin, with all his heart…but then, some part of him wants to stay right here forever. And some parts of him will.

He came home and cried in this bed after their debut stage. He first saw himself on TV sitting on that couch. He kissed Taemin for the first time right here at this table. The hot water runs out after the fourth person showers, after the third if Kibum is one of them. Minho hit the smoke alarm with a baseball once and it’s never been right since. The air conditioning always sounds like it’s on the verge of breaking down, but it never does. The refrigerator door gets stuck all the time, and so does the window in their bedroom. Half the stuff they’ve packed up, they can’t even remember where they got it, who it’s supposed to belong to. Half of that they should have just thrown out, but no one said anything.

And Jonghyun can’t now, so Manager Hyung says it for him.

“Change isn’t easy, Minho-yah.”

 

In no time Jinki’s snores drive Taemin out onto the couch, where he plays at studying in between watching TV with Kibum and Minho. Jonghyun thinks he’ll follow him over, but then Manager Hyung goes for the soju Jinki left behind, and even if Jonghyun can’t drink, the least he can do is sit with him.

“What about you, Jonghyunnie?” Manager Hyung says at length. “You okay?”

“Huh?”

“Just, if you need to talk…” Jonghyun’s not sure where this is coming from. When Jinki needs to talk he gets drunk, but if Jonghyun does, he can’t shut himself up. Manager Hyung seems to read it in his face, kind of gives up. “If you don’t want to, I get it.”

Jonghyun doesn’t not want to.

“About the photos, you mean. Scary Noona’s.”

“It’s okay,” Manager Hyung tells him quickly. “As long as you’re okay.”

He is and he isn’t.

“It’s like…if I throw them out, they keep coming. If I try to forget about it, they won’t let me. And it should be my problem, but they keep involving other people.” Jonghyun thinks that’s as far as he’ll go, but that’s nowhere. Before he can stop himself he starts up, “Hyung,” and then he has to say it. “Whoever it is, they misjudged Scary Noona.”

“You mean Jinmyung noona?”

Manager Hyung’s voice is so gentle, but Jonghyun knows he’s really saying, _Kind of like you did?_ The irony isn’t lost on him.

“And they got Mikyung-ssi wrong too,” Jonghyun says, moving on, because there’s no point trying to make it up to Manager Hyung in her place. “They only knew her bad side.”

Manager Hyung would know that better than Jonghyun too, but all he says is, “True,” and then he gets busy drinking, leaving Jonghyun to go on. It’s getting harder and harder, and Jonghyun doesn’t know how to say this next thing, but all of the sudden he wants to put it out there so badly.

“So I’ve been thinking…maybe they just don’t want to see my good side. Maybe it’s not about me, maybe it’s about them.” It’s easier to say that out loud than he’d thought, but it’s only Manager Hyung. He might even be a little tipsy by now, he might not be listening too closely. And he’ll never ask him to repeat it, tell Jonghyun to listen to himself if things get bad again. He’ll never make Jonghyun take it back. “I don’t care what they say about me anymore. I don’t care if they hate me. Even if they do know me, even if they’re right about me, I don’t care.”

Next second, Jonghyun’s face heats up and his stomach clenches and all he has ears for is the murmur of the TV, the others' voices, because what if they all heard him. And for the longest time Manager Hyung just looks at him.

“Jonghyun-ah, what’s so bad about you?” he says finally. Of all things he smiles. “What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done? Because if we go head-to-head I’m pretty sure I’d win.”

“You? I doubt it.” Manager Hyung takes offense at that, and Jonghyun knows he’s just kidding, knows he doesn’t have to rush to explain, but. “You always try so hard to stay out of everything.”

“And you try too hard.”

It costs Jonghyun nothing to admit it. “Probably.” Taemin’s right there, he’s been right there the whole time, in the corner of Jonghyun’s eye, and it’s out of his mouth before he can stop himself. “But someone told me that’s why they love me.”

Manager Hyung snorts, but he means it when he asks Jonghyun, “And you’re happy that way?”

“Me? Happy?” It’s just a joke, and Jonghyun’s the only one laughing, but still, it clears him out, gets him to his feet, helps him say this last thing, “They know me better than I know myself. I want to see what they see in me,” and that’s everything. All that’s left inside him now is Taemin.

“Jonghyunnie…did you get a girlfriend?”

He sounds almost cautious, but that’s probably because he never asks.

And Jonghyun doesn’t even have to lie to him. “Nope.”

“Really,” Manager Hyung says, testing him. Jonghyun nods, moves to leave, but then Manager Hyung has to ruin it, raise his voice to call after him, “You’re really not dating?”

Taemin goes still, and in the meantime Manager Hyung catches up, tripping over his chair, laying his hand on Jonghyun’s shoulder. After years of not having this conversation, somehow they’re having it here and they’re having it now, and the only way out is getting it over with.

“Are you worried about our comeback?” Jonghyun says carefully.

“It’s not that,” Manager Hyung begins.

“Don’t worry, hyung.”

Manager Hyung opens his mouth to reply, and Jonghyun gives him the biggest smile he can, a real one, and there’s one second where he thinks this’ll be the time Manager Hyung doesn’t give in…but then he nods, passes his hand through his hair. Squeezes Jonghyun’s shoulder. Lets go.

Jonghyun is free. “Taemin-ah, are you ready to go?”

Taemin keeps his eyes on his book. “I don’t know, maybe I’ll study some more.”

“You can fail and you’ll still graduate.” First he played with Jonghyun, and now he’s playing hard to get. “Taemin-ah~” Unless he’s mad about just now? “Come on. Hyung will buy you ice cream on the way back~”

“It’s winter,” Kibum says in his you’re-a-fucking-idiot voice.

Jonghyun’s fine being a fucking idiot if it’s for Taemin. “It’s almost March.”

“Taeminnie, do you want hyung to make you a snack~?” Kibum sings out.

“Please, Taeminnie.” That gets Taemin to look at him. “Just for a minute. I’m going crazy in here, I need to get some air.” Taemin just looks some more. “I guess I can go alone?”

Taemin doesn’t think so. He gets his coat. Leads Jonghyun out the door.

Jonghyun catches up to him on the stairs, grabbing his arm, slowing him down. “Taeminnie, are you mad at me?”

“No.”

“Now you’re lying to me, too.”

“Look who’s talking,” Taemin retorts, and then his own words catch up to him and he goes bright red. Still, he won’t take it back. “I mean…you said you wanted to tell them.”

“I do,” Jonghyun says.

“It’s okay, hyung. I know you had to say that,” Taemin tells him, taking the stairs two at a time now. “I don’t know why I’m like this.”

Jonghyun thinks he does, but he waits until they step out into the twilight, and Taemin has nowhere left to hide. Jonghyun takes him by both arms, stares into his face, lets Taemin search his until he finds something in it that makes him relax in Jonghyun’s hold.

“I want to, Taeminnie. More than anything.” When he lets him go Taemin stays where he is. “We have to get the timing right.”

“I know.”

That again.

Jonghyun bites back a smile. “But you’re not okay with it?” Holding Taemin’s face, trying to hold his eyes. “You’re still mad?” Pinching his cheeks, stroking his hair back, making a face that’s supposed to make Taemin smile. “Don’t be mad, baby. Please.”

There’s no one else around. There’s nothing else for it. Jonghyun leans in and kisses him on the mouth.

When he lifts away Taemin’s eyes are still closed and he’s got this smile on his face he probably doesn’t even know is there, and he’s so cute Jonghyun has to kiss him again and again and again.

Taemin beams at him, brighter than the sun. “When?”

And now he’s asking Jonghyun to think. It’s a good thing he already did. A lot.

“The day we move out? It’s our last night in one room, so they won’t have time to be uncomfortable…and Jinki hyung wants to have a party, the atmosphere will be good…and you’ll be finished with school, so it won’t add to your stress if things get weird.” Taemin hasn’t stopped him yet, but he hasn’t said anything either, and he’s got this look on his face Jonghyun’s never seen before. “Don’t worry, Taemin-ah. If it goes badly, I’ll handle it. I’ll find a way to make them understand us. Just hold onto me, okay? Don’t let go.” Taemin nods, and that’s all, but it’s enough. Jonghyun breaks into a smile, dizzy with happiness. “You want to go back up there and tell them right now?”

“Mm,” Taemin says, and then, “Hyung.” Something in Jonghyun’s face makes Taemin shy, ears red, breath short, but he doesn’t look away. “You really like me, don’t you? Really, really.”

More than Jonghyun could ever say. He has no words for how he’s feeling right now.

He sticks his hand out for Taemin to take.

 

The moment passes, and then the night does, too, and morning comes earlier than ever. Today’s the day they shoot their MV. 

Jinki doesn’t move past monosyllables until they’re already in the car, and then he calls shotgun and buys an extra thirty minutes to himself, working up to meeting their eyes. Which, whatever. They’ve all seen him drunk before. Maybe not before sunset, but that’s just because they’re always burning all their daylight at work.

“I don’t need to ask if you slept it off,” Kibum says to the back of Jinki’s head. When that gets nowhere, he sings out, “Four days till I never have to deal with your fucking snoring ever again~”

Minho clues in, says loudly, “Wow, you’re confident. Ask Manager Hyung if it carries or not. No, ask the guy who lives downstairs.”

That’s too far for Kibum. He favors Minho with a withering look. “Let’s stick to facts.”

Manager Hyung glances uneasily at them in the rear view mirror, but when he asks, “Has mine ever bothered you guys?” it falls on deaf ears. Kibum and Minho are stuck on each other.

“I’m only asking because I’m curious, Kibum-ah…do you think you never snore?”

“I don’t talk in my sleep, either. Unlike some people.”

“What kinds of things do I say?” Minho says, trying so hard to sound unbothered Jonghyun has to bite back a laugh. Kibum doesn’t keep it in, though. “What? I can’t ask? I always forget my dreams.”

“Aigoo.”

Jonghyun’s pretty sure Kibum’s making this up, he’s pretty sure Kibum’s the only one who sleeps longer and sounder than Minho. He’s pretty sure he would know, considering he never does.

“Fine,” Minho says in that stupid voice, like he’s totally not mad, “I’ll make sure to wake you up the next time you snore, just to tell you.”

“Uh huh.” Kibum cracks a smile. “I’ll do the same for you. They say you remember your dreams if you wake up in the middle.”

“You guys do realize you won’t be rooming together anymore, either?” Jonghyun snaps, because he’s so tired and he’s so tired of them.

“I don’t know. Taeminnie, do you still want your own room?” 

Jinki, at last. Figures they couldn’t annoy him out of it. Figures he’d only open his mouth to get Jonghyun instead. But now Taemin is making this face like he’s not sure how to answer, and if he’s really thinking about it, after _everything,_ Jonghyun doesn’t know what he’ll do.

“I’ll stick with Jonghyun hyung,” Taemin says at last, a little pink. “He’s more annoying when he hasn’t slept. I have to make sure he does.”

Jonghyun’s got the biggest, stupidest smile on his face and nowhere to hide, sneaking a hand onto Taemin’s knee, staring out into the half-light, but the others don’t know to make fun of him for it. Not yet.

Instead Kibum says, “At least I don’t fart in my sleep,” looking straight at Jinki.

“Or crush Taeminnie,” Minho adds.

“Oh my God, shut up,” Jonghyun snaps, before he can even think. He’s being so stupid, it’s not like Jinki counts as another man, and if anyone crushes Taemin from now on it’ll be Jonghyun. “Stop. Please.”

They don’t. But when they start in on him it’s not like they need him to say anything back. He can just ignore them. At least he can try.

Jonghyun’s left to wonder which is more annoying, Jinki’s silences or their existence, but he has Taemin drifting off on his shoulder, so he doesn’t do a whole lot of thinking on it. He’s almost relieved all the same when they arrive at work, and he’s put at the mercy of the coordi noonas instead. But then that reminds him.

Scary Noona…no. Jinmyung noona.

She barely reacts when he leaves Taemin behind and makes a beeline for her, just finishes her prep and pulls a chair up alongside his. He turns to face her before she can do it for him, lets her clip his bangs back, and that’s as far as he can get with her for a while, staring into her face while she starts on his. He can’t read it. He doesn’t know if she’s having a bad day already, if she glowers like this when she’s concentrating on things that aren’t Jonghyun. If she even knows what kind of face she’s making.

“Jinmyung noona.” He doesn’t know what she counts as personal, doesn’t know how she takes questions, but he never will, if he doesn’t ask. “Why did you become a stylist?”

She doesn’t blink.

“Then why did you become an idol?”

Fair enough, except now Jonghyun has to think. She gives him as much time as he needs, foundation, mascara, lip-gloss. In one ear he has the others’ chatter, that laugh of Taemin’s, so dumb it’s cute, and in the other he’s got her silence, and if he snuck a glance in the mirror he’s not sure he’d see himself.

“Everyone has to make money somehow,” he says finally. “It was the one thing I knew I could do.”

All that gets him is a frown, but he’s used to that. Then she goes off script again, uses words. “So it’s not because you liked music?”

“I do,” he says. He does, more than anything. And maybe he didn’t know what he was signing up for, what this life would be like, but there’s nothing he wouldn’t have done, nothing he wouldn’t have given up, to get where he is now. He’d probably do it all again. “Honestly, I don’t know what I would have done with myself otherwise. I still don’t know what to do with myself, now. Music is all I’ve got.”

She nods, frowns some more. Hesitates.

Then tells him, “I was a White Angel back in the day.”

“Really?”

It just pops out of him.

“What, you can’t picture it?” She smiles, shy and painful, and Jonghyun can see it. Screaming and crying, stickers and pins and signs, daydreaming about oppa on the bus. “It’s a little weird for me too, thinking about it, but H.O.T. was my life. I was crazy for them.”

Jonghyun’s been in love so many times, but that’s one kind he’s never known. If he liked a band or a singer, if he thought they were cool, it was always about the music. Always.

“My sister was really into Shinhwa. I was into Nirvana,” he says. “How crazy is crazy?” Not scribbling on their pictures and poking their eyes out crazy, but maybe, “Hopping their fence, making blood oaths crazy?”

“I wasn’t on that level,” she says flatly. He doesn’t have time to be disappointed, because she goes on, “My best friend and I even auditioned at SM together, just so we could meet them, maybe date them.” Her eyes are narrowed in concentration, fixed on Jonghyun’s face, but she sounds so far away. “We did everything.”

“Did you guys go your separate ways in the end?”

“What do you mean, ‘in the end?’ Club H.O.T.’s not active anymore, but we’re still around.” It sounds like a reproach to Jonghyun. “And we both ended up working here.”

“Moon Sokyung-ssi?”

She takes his chin in her hand instead of answering, turning his head this way and that, checking her work. It’s not until she circles around behind him, starts on his hair, that she says, “It wasn’t what she thought it would be.”

That’s what Manager Hyung said, when Taemin asked. Right now it feels like a million years ago.

“Is anything, ever?” Jonghyun catches her eye in the mirror, but she doesn’t reply and she doesn’t ask, so he’s left trying to explain himself. “I don’t mean anything bad. It’s just…you won’t know what something’s really like until you’re already there, and everything looks different from the other side. There’s no point looking back.”

“Or looking down?”

Jonghyun’s never thought about it like that, but now he gives it a try. He leans into it when she takes a brush to his hair, bracing himself, but she knows what she’s doing. It doesn’t hurt.

He still hasn’t gotten anywhere when she finishes the thought on her own. “I always feel like I’m going to fall, when I do.”

Trying to talk to her is a little like talking to Taemin used to be, before he let Jonghyun in. It took Jonghyun years just to get Taemin to take things from him without asking, and even longer for Taemin to come out with things on his own, the way she just did. He’s spent years not talking to her. Maybe he should be worried about keeping up.

“Do you like your job?” he says.

She shrugs. “I don’t hate it.”

“It’s a job?”

She has to think about it, but finally she says, “It’s more than that.”

“You ever think of doing something else?”

He thinks maybe that’s too far, but she just needs a minute, and then she’s saying, “I’ll have to start, at some point. I can’t retire here, the benefits are no good.”

He can’t either.

“Jinmyung noona.”

He’s learning not to take it personally when she glares at him, but this time she means it, this time she’s doing it for him to see. “Don’t talk so much, you make my job harder every time you open your mouth.”

He can work with that, though.

“Noona~”

For a second there she looks like she might explode, but then she half-smiles, huffs, “What?”

He has to think of something now. He’s not sure what he’s going to say until it’s out of his mouth. “Who was your bias?”

“Kangta oppa,” she replies immediately.

Honestly, Jonghyun isn’t sure which one that is. It’s not about him, though, so who cares.

“Do you still like him?” he asks her.

Her eyes flit up to meet his in the mirror, and he’s pretty sure that look on her face is supposed to mean _why wouldn’t I._

“He’s not an oppa anymore, he’s an ahjussi.”

“I don’t know how it is from your side, but fans aren’t that easy. For me, for a lot of people, being a fan is forever.”

Jonghyun’s never thought that far ahead, only as far as the next schedule, the next song, the next album, the next thing. But this comeback, when Shinee gets up on that stage again, goes in front of the cameras, he knows they won’t be alone. Some people will have forgotten their fan chant by now, sold their light stick, moved on to EXO, outgrown pop music, whatever, but there’ll be someone who remembers, too. There has to be.

When there isn’t, he gets to quit, too. When they stop getting up at four a.m. to cheer Shinee on, music show after music show, he can sleep in. When they stop streaming Shinee’s MV’s, he can skip practice and rest. When they stop fighting for the remote whenever Shinee goes on TV, he gets to say no to things, stop letting writers and PD’s play with him. When they’re no longer screaming his name, kissing his pictures, telling him he’s beautiful inside and out, he can stop working out, go without make up, throw away his insoles, let himself go. Stop smiling. And when they stop buying Shinee’s albums, SM will stop making them.

There’s no Shinee without Shinee World. And there’s no Shinee’s Jonghyun.

_Maybe there’s no me, either._

But there are two sides to this, like she said. He’s never been on hers.

“Because you can’t get hurt?” he guesses.

She shakes her head, gets as far as, “You don’t have to let go,” and then slowly, surely, the words come to her. “You don’t have to understand them, either, you don’t even have to understand yourself. It’s okay if you only look at their good side, and it’s okay if you just see what you want, as long as you don’t get too close.” She fluffs his hair one last time, and goes for the hair spray. Jonghyun’s so busy hating this part he almost misses it when she adds, “Protecting them is protecting yourself.”

He doesn’t know about the rest of it, but that last thing he gets. He gets it so much it should probably be scary.

At the other end of the counter, Taemin’s laughing at something. Jonghyun looks for as long she lets him. It feels like an eternity, it feels like forever, but in reality she lasts all of two seconds before she wrenches his head around. And then it doesn’t matter, because Taemin’s still with him. In his right ear, in his head, inside him. In the mirror, in the corner of his eye, if Jonghyun’s sneaky enough.

Before they build up a silence he has to try and break, he says, “Have you met him? Kangta oppa?”

“I’ve been to see his shows,” she replies, easily enough. “That’s enough for me.”

“Who’s your bias in Shinee?”

She snorts, tells him on no uncertain terms, “Aigoo. You’re all babies,” and when he laughs at himself, she does too, shy and stifled, hiding behind her hand, but she’s laughing.

That’s a start. Next time he’ll get her to say Jonghyun.

 

The day before they move into their new dorm, the last day they’ll go home to their old one, Jonghyun spends the afternoon in a cake shop with Jinki. Jinki takes forever to pick the one he wants. Nothing is tall enough or fluffy enough for him. When Jonghyun tries to force his hand, he tells him, “This is the last time we’ll come here. It’ll be too far to walk from the new dorm.”

Jonghyun doesn’t know what goodbye tastes like—tears?—but Jinki goes with strawberry in the end.

“This is the last time we’ll get our mail,” he says as they pass through the lobby, and then he chances half a glance at Jonghyun, does some rethinking. “Or not.”

“It’s fine,” Jonghyun says.

And then it really is, because their mail box is empty. Manager Hyung must have changed their forwarding address already. Jonghyun’s stomach unclenches by the time they hit the stairs.

Like clockwork, Jinki says, “This is the last time we’ll go up these stairs.”

Jonghyun considers murdering him, but if he tries anything he might squish the cake, and Kibum is scarier than Jinki is annoying. He went ahead with Minho, too, so he should be home already.

“What about the elevator, should we go back for that?” Jonghyun says instead.

Jinki grins, bumps his shoulder. “Should we?”

Jonghyun really can’t handle him.

“If you want to stay here I won’t stop you.” Jinki’s smile fades, then lingers, touching Jonghyun somewhere inside. “Did you really like it here that much?”

“Not really?” Jinki replies. “I just don’t know how else to end things. I can’t feel myself letting go, so I’m worried I’m not.”

“It’s not that complicated, hyung. You don’t think you’ll figure it out when you stop living here?”

“We’ll see.”

There’s no debating that, and anyway, they’re here. Jonghyun thinks about kicking the door until Kibum or Minho comes, but instead he lets Jinki do his thing, hunch over and punch in the passcode.

Jonghyun’s phone buzzes to life in his pocket. Taemin~

_done_

With his last final.

“Taeminnie’s on his way,” Jonghyun says.

And then, two seconds later.

_graduated_

Technically.

_what r u going to give me ^^_

Whatever Taemin wants. Jonghyun’s everything. Jonghyun’s anything.

He has to find a way to tell Taemin that without scaring him off, though. Taemin never texted him like this before they started dating, and just now is the first time since. But then the door clicks, Jinki shoulders it open, and first things first. Once Jonghyun figures out how to tell the others he’s dating Taemin he can worry about how. Jinki will be easy. Minho, a little harder. And Kibum—

Kibum. He meets them in the entryway. The minute Jonghyun sees his face he _knows._

“Ahjumma gave this to me to give to you.” Kibum looks like he’d rather die. That’s how Jonghyun feels inside, taking the envelope from him. “She said someone slipped it under our door.”

Jonghyun looks it in the face. Little white rectangle. Light as air, sealed tight. His name in black.

_Jonghyun-ssi_

It takes Jinki forever just to say, “Don’t open it, Jonghyunnie,” but it’s like he can’t keep up with his voice, frantic and strange. “We’re moving out tomorrow.”

Some crazy part of Jonghyun wants to tell Jinki it’s the last time. Instead he shoulders past both of them, Minho too, and makes it all the way to the kitchen table before it all catches up with him, sits before it takes his legs out from under him.

The others crowd around him, dragging their chairs next to his. Minho squeezes his shoulder, says, “You’re sure you don’t want to rip it up,” but he’s only saying that. Jonghyun rips open the envelope instead. Turns his stomach upside down. Turns his whole world upside down.

The photo’s changed.

Nobody stabbed Jonghyun with a pencil. Nobody scribbled on Jonghyun with a sharpie. Nobody stabbed him the heart, in the lungs, made him sick, turned his insides black. He did it to himself.

He’s the one who kissed Taemin where someone else could see.

_Hyung…You really like me, don’t you? Really, really._

_Don’t worry, Taemin-ah. If it goes badly, I’ll handle it. I’ll find a way to make them understand us. Just hold onto me, okay? Don’t let go._

Everything has changed.

“What the fuck?” Kibum. “You and Taeminnie. You—What the fuck.”

Minho’s hand turns into a claw in Jonghyun’s shoulder. It should hurt. “Say something, hyung.” His voice should hurt, too, like a bomb in his ear. “This is for real? This isn’t a joke? You’re fucking Taeminnie,” and Jonghyun snaps around to face him, because it’s not a fucking joke, _Taemin’s_ not a fucking joke, _“Dating_ him. Fine. I don’t think that’s what’s important right now, hyung. I don’t think you get a fucking say.”

From somewhere far away, Jonghyun hears himself say, “We were going to tell you today.”

Sudden thunderclap of silence, and then Kibum snarls, _“Well we fucking know now!”_ and somehow this is real. This is hell. Kibum’s eyes eat Jonghyun alive, face red, knuckles white. “And so does this fucking creep. Do you even know what this means, hyung? You don’t, do you? You’re that fucking stupid.”

He knows.

“Kibummie, stop,” Jinki warns him.

he knows. he knows. he KNOWS.

“This whole time, I have been so fucking careful, you have no idea. I never go on dates, I never kiss outside hotel rooms. You guys have never met any of my boyfriends. Half of them my fucking parents have never met. And guess what? NOBODY’S FUCKING LIFE GETS RUINED!”

Jinki rockets to his feet, chair crashing to the floor, hands slamming onto the table.

“Fucking shut up, okay? SHUT. UP.”

“This is your whole fucking life in the fucking toilet. This is Taeminnie’s life. You better hope Shinee can go on without its lead fucking vocalist and its lead fucking dancer, or you don’t want to know what I’ll do to you.” Kibum only stops for air, face twisting up with all the things trapped inside him, and then his lungs kick in and all he has left for Jonghyun is, “I hope you’re fucking happy, you fucking selfish… _fuck._ Fuckfuckfuck. FUCK.”

There’s nothing Jonghyun can say to make it better. There’s nothing he can do. He’s done too much already, just being here breathing their air is too much. Just existing. He’s hurting them. It probably hurts to look at him. It hurts him more, being seen like this. It’d be better if someone would shut him up, beat him up, lock him up, before he explodes all over them, but they can’t save themselves anymore. Not from him.

Minho says into the silence, like he’s going to make this right or die trying, “They sent it to us, not Dispatch.”

Kibum laughs like broken glass.

“Oh, great. We’re all saved.”

Shinee’s Jonghyun isn’t allowed to date girls, but Jonghyun’s not allowed to have eyes for anyone else. He fell for a man. He confessed to him. He dated him. He kissed him. The end.

_Taemin._

“Let’s all calm down. Breathe.” Jinki thumps Jonghyun’s back, wrenches a sob out of him. _“Breathe._ You said Taeminnie’s done, right?” Oh God, Taemin. “Manager Hyung. He’ll know what to do. Maybe we can buy this person off. Maybe the company can bury it.”

“He’s been getting these things for three months and they still don’t know who the fuck is sending them,” Kibum tells him, no mercy.

“We don’t even know that it’s the same person, this is completely different.”

“It’s called escalation, Minho-yah.”

“We don’t know that.”

“It’s them.” Jonghyun takes a deep breath. Does no good. “The handwriting.”

Minho glares at him. Glares and glares and glares, hates him and hates him, but Jonghyun can’t disappear. He can’t get out of this chair. He can’t get out of his body. He has to sit here and feel everything as it’s ripped apart.

Minho turns on Jinki. “Did you know about this, hyung? Them dating.”

“No,” but Jinki says over Jonghyun, loud and clear, “Yes.”

“And you kept it from me and Kibummie?” Minho demands, so angry he can hardly speak. “You didn’t tell them this would happen?”

“Do you tell us everything? Do you turn yourself inside out? You don’t.” Jinki stares Minho down, then rounds on Kibum. “And you. It’s okay if Jonghyunnie has a life, as long as he lives it the way you do? Don’t put that shit on other people. Nobody put that on you.”

“Hyung, it’s okay,” and Jonghyun doesn’t know how this thing coming out of him is his voice, ragged and weak and shaking. “I’m not sorry I love him. I didn’t do anything wrong. Taeminnie didn’t.” He has to make himself meet their eyes. “But I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry.” Breathe. breathe. breathe. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

That’s all he has for them. That’s it. He’s ruined their lives, he’s killed their dream, ended Shinee, but that’s it.

He does his best to keep it to himself, eats the noises clawing to get out, holds it all in, this feeling tearing up his insides, because he doesn’t have the fucking right. There are tears standing in his eyes. He has no right.

“Don’t you fucking cry, hyung, I really can’t deal with that right now.” Minho pats Jonghyun’s shoulder, rough and clumsy. So gentle it kills him. “Come on. You have to keep it together. If you don’t they win.”

Jonghyun puts his head down. Bites his arm. Sees black. But he has nowhere to hide, not from himself.

“Is it the end of the world?“ Kibum snaps. “It might not even be the end of Shinee. I have a friend who’s had something similar happen. Worse.” He takes a deep breath, then another. He’s trying so hard and he means so much when he says, “Even if they send it to Dispatch, there are ways. There have to be.”

Jonghyun breaks.

Snaps. “Don’t tell Taeminnie, okay?”

Their silence lasts a lifetime.

And then Jinki says, “It’s not just your picture this time, Jonghyunnie.”

That’s why.

“Promise me you won’t. Please. Let me talk to Manager Hyung first, see if there’s anything we can do.” Jonghyun’s begging and pleading but he’d do more. “If there’s nothing, I’ll tell him, but please. Please.”

He’d do anything.

“Okay,” Kibum says. “Shhh. It’s okay.”

For the longest time that’s all. But it’s just the beginning, because in no time at all, Taemin’s going to walk through that door, and if he sees Jonghyun like this, he won’t walk back out on his own. Jonghyun needs to stop fucking crying, for him. He needs to put himself back together, for him. He needs more time. They had so little. These past seven years with him, Taemin has felt like forever, but from the other side it feels like nothing.

When Taemin comes in, the photo is in Jonghyun’s back pocket. His eyes are dry. The TV is on. None of them are watching it. They’re all pretending they are.

Still, Taemin falters when he sees them. First his eyes narrow, and then they settle on Jonghyun. “Did something happen?”

This isn’t the first time Jonghyun’s lied to him, but it’s the worst. He doesn’t know if he can do it. He has to. He can’t. _He has to._ He opens his mouth and—

“Does it look like it? We’ve been sitting here waiting for you forever,” Kibum huffs. “We’re about to die of boredom here.”

Minho smiles, bright and big, faking it as best he can. “What about you, what took you so long? Did you feel like trying now that it’s the last time?”

“Math,” is all Taemin says to that. He makes for the couch, squeezing in next to Jonghyun, so warm and soft Jonghyun could die. “I texted you, hyung.”

It’s his turn now.

“I saw,” he says.

“You didn’t reply, though?”

“You never do?” If Jonghyun fakes a smile, Taemin will know. If he makes up an excuse, he’ll know. He passes his hand over Taemin’s hair, gets the words out before his throat closes. “I’ll reply later. I wanted to see your face.”

Taemin stares into his, now. Reaches up and rubs at Jonghyun’s eyes.

“Have you been crying or something?” he says, and maybe Jonghyun’s heart stops, but it’s okay. Taemin’s smiling at him. “You said you wouldn’t get sad, but you always do.”

It takes Jonghyun too long to get it, and then he can feel the tears coming again.

Taemin means moving out of here. He means leaving this place.

Leaving their lives here behind.

Jonghyun pinches Taemin’s cheek. He puts everything he has left into this one last thing, “You’re always right and I’m always wrong. There. Happy?” and then he goes and hides in the bathroom.

He doesn’t come out until the others have sent Taemin off to the store. All the money in Jinki’s wallet. Don’t come back until you’ve spent it all. Snacks for the party.

Manager Hyung is waiting.

“You want to tell me what’s going on, Jonghyunnie? The others won’t say.”

He’s not wasting any time, so Jonghyun doesn’t either. He thinks it’s better if they do this sitting down, in case anybody’s legs stop working again, so he makes it back to the couch, back to the others. Then he passes the photo to Manager Hyung and waits for the reaction that doesn’t come and doesn’t come and doesn’t come.

At last Manager Hyung looks up at him. “This is real?”

“Yes.”

“You and Taeminnie?”

“Yes.”

“How long?”

“Does it matter?” Jinki cuts in.

Manager Hyung’s voice sharpens. “I asked him.”

Minho goes tense next to Jonghyun, so Jonghyun gets it out there, quick as he can, “Since January,” before he opens his mouth next.

“I asked you just this week. Right over there, I asked you. You said you weren’t dating.”

“I know.”

“Jonghyun-ah...Do you realize what this means?”

This one hits him the hardest. It takes everything he’s got.

“Yes.”

“Do you?”

Somehow it’s harder hearing this from Manager Hyung than Kibum. Jonghyun can barely look him in the eye, but somehow he has to.

“This is your whole fucking life, right here. Everything you ever did, everything you ever worked for, everyone depending on you,” Manager Hyung says, eyes flashing, hands shaking. “YOUR WHOLE FUCKING LIFE!” he yells, spit flying, and Jonghyun can’t breathe. “I don’t ask you much. I know you hate it when I do. I hate it too. I hate what the company does to you guys. I hate what I do.” Jonghyun can’t breathe and Manager Hyung doesn’t give a fuck. It’s too late to stop him now, it’s four years too late. “But I do it to protect you. If you don’t tell me anything I can’t help you. I can’t do anything. I CAN’T DO MY FUCKING JOB IF YOU DON’T LET ME! AND YOU NEVER LET ME!”

“I’m sorry, hyung,” are the only words Jonghyun has left.

They’re worse than useless. Manager Hyung just throws them back in his face, “If you’re not, you will be,” and then staggers to his feet, legs shaking so badly he can barely get them under him. Kibum takes his elbow and Manager Hyung jerks away from him, making for the hall, the entryway, leaving them behind.

Minho is the first to catch up. “Where are you going?”

“Out,” Manager Hyung snaps. “I need air. I need to think. I don’t know what I need.”

Jonghyun has to get to him first. He can’t let it end like this.

“Hyung, please,” he says, garbled, messy, but he’s getting the words out somehow. “Please. I don’t care about me, but Taeminnie—”

“If you were worried about Taeminnie you would’ve ended your feelings on your own. You wouldn’t be dating him. You wouldn’t have kissed him _in front of our fucking building,”_ Manager Hyung tells him. “It’s too late for you to worry about him now. You don’t have the right.”

Jonghyun grabs at him, holds on for dear life.

“Then you worry about him. But please.”

Manager Hyung sighs like an old man. And then, of all things, he smiles.

“You’re always so busy hating yourself, Jonghyunnie, that you’ve never learned to hate this shitty life, this dirty fucking world. But you’ve never grown the fuck up and learned to live in it, either.”

“Hyung, please. Please. Please.” The door slams and he’s gone. Jonghyun’s shoes, where, jamming his feet into anything, but then his legs betray him, and his knees hit the floor, and his whole body hurts, crippled and bent and twisted, and all he can do is cry. “Please God.”

He loses it.

He’s lost it.

He’s lost everything.

He doesn’t fight when Jinki half drags half carries him to the living room, but he’s not getting up again. Not just yet. Not until.

From another planet, Kibum says, “Taeminnie’s taking forever.”

“He’s probably buying out the whole store,” Minho replies, ghost of a smile.

He’s probably picking what to put back. Seo Bom only has eyes for her books, she won’t give him a discount, no matter how cute Taemin is. No one’s ever given Taemin anything. He’s worked so hard to get where he is.

“Let me see the envelope again.”

“It’s like hyung said, it’s the same handwriting.”

“I have eyes. There’s just something.”

“See if you can find the ones Manager Hyung collected, before Jonghyunnie found out. Check his room, go on.” Jinki gives Minho all of five seconds before he starts pushing. “Don’t worry, if he gets mad again I’ll handle it.”

Like Manager Hyung would. You can only bend a person so far before they break, even someone like him. Jonghyun snapped him in half tonight. Everything he touches breaks.

Taemin. Taemin. Taemin.

“I don’t give a shit if he does,” Minho says loudly. “He can go ahead.”

_Taeminnie._

Minho steps over Jonghyun. The floorboards creak, his footsteps fade, and then all of the sudden, “Ow, _fuck.”_

By the time Jonghyun gets himself over there, there is the couch again. Kibum’s got his hand on Minho’s shoulder, too tight, and Jinki’s got Minho’s foot in his, red blossom of blood on his sock, shard of glass sticking out.

It must have gotten in between the floorboards. It’s been almost a week since Jinki dropped that picture frame and somehow nobody stepped on it until now, but it’s the worst day of their lives. And a week back getting hurt, missing practice would have meant the end of the world, but today this is just one more thing.

“Hyung is sorry,” Jinki says, tongue between his teeth, “I’ll never drink again.”

“It’s fine, it barely hurts, just pull it out already. Kibummie, you go—”

Jinki goes for it and Minho almost bites his tongue off, but Kibum doesn’t leave his side. He doesn’t move a muscle, strange look on his face like he’s about to explode, leave orbit.

And then suddenly, out of nowhere, “Oh. OH.” He slaps Minho’s shoulder, again and again and again. “Minho, you’re a fucking genius. I love you.”

Minho catches his wrist in his hand, saying to Jinki, “He’s cracked too, hyung. It’s just you and me.”

Kibum twists out of his grip, holds his face in his hands, so tight he’s smushing Minho’s cheeks, hands shaking so hard Jonghyun can see them from where he’s standing.

“That collage. Where is it, where did you put it?” Kibum says in a terrible rush. Minho makes a face and if he asks _how is that important_ it’s for all of them, but Kibum talks right over him, intent, deadly serious. “Shut the fuck up, just tell me where.”

“The bookshelf in our room,” Minho begins, and Kibum’s gone. “Kibummie, what?”

Kibum takes a minute, and then he heads straight for the table, where the four of them started. Jonghyun follows him, Jinki at his heels, Minho hopping along behind. He slaps it down next to the envelopes and photos.

“The handwriting,” he says, breathing hard. “There was something weird about it, I fucking _knew_ it. See. Look.”

Jonghyun looks. Seeing comes more slowly. 2008 and 2012. Sharpie and pencil. Hearts and bunnies, and pencil holes and scribbles. If this is the same person, something happened to them. Something bad. Life, probably.

If.

Taemin needs more than that from him.

Jonghyun takes a closer look, until his eyes hurt as much as the rest of him, reading and rereading the messages they sent him with the photos, burning them into his brain.

_Looks are everything, and the truth is ugly. Beauty is skin deep. Turn him inside out._

_LOOK AT ME._

And then he goes back in time.

_Jonghyun oppa—I’ll never forget you. I’ll always remember what you said to me that day. Thank you for being you. Thank you for seeing the real me._

And then, for Shinee.

_Shinee, fighting! If things get tough, I hope you know that you’re not alone. Live your dreams! Love forever,_

Jinki makes a surprised noise. “Smoking Girl?”

_Seo Bom_

“Huh?” Minho gives Jinki a look. “Manager Hyung said it was from that Moon Mikyung girl.”

Kibum shakes his head. “One of her students.”

_It’s not me, it’s my parents. They set me up with a tutor first, but it’s been years and she hasn’t made me any smarter._

_You want to know something funny? My dream was to be a singer, like you. I can’t sing._

_I wanted you to be comfortable around me. You can be yourself._

_You don’t need me anymore._

_LOOK AT ME_

Seo Bom.

“Taeminnie.”

Jonghyun runs.

Out the door, out into the night, winter exploding into his lungs, pavement underfoot, short fucking legs, he runs.

_Please, Taeminnie. Please._

He's too late. The store is empty.

She’s gone, and so is Taemin.


	4. Chapter 4

It’s like a bomb has gone off.

Register ajar, basket turned over on the counter, junk food exploded all over the floor, crunching underfoot. A wallet.

Taemin’s.

_Taeminnie._

Jonghyun can’t catch his breath. His heart is in his ears, hammering, thundering, yelling at him like it wants out, but he can’t feel it in his chest. He can’t feel anything.

He staggers upright, makes for the counter, something solid, because he can’t trust his legs, weak and cramping, shaking. He kicks something and feels it with his whole body, sharp shooting pain, his fucking _toes._ And it’s a book. English Language Prep.

There’s more where that came from. Calculus, history, Korean lit, shoveled into piles, thrown every which way, cracked open and crumpled up on the floor, left to die. So many Jonghyun can’t see straight, and he can’t breathe, because—

Her suitcase. Her fucking _suitcase._

TAEMIN.

His car keys. His fucking keys, where the _fuck—_

The way back is supposed to be shorter, it was always shorter, Taemin full and sleepy, so pretty in the moonlight, catching Jonghyun looking, looking back. But it’s dark and it’s cold and his legs are too short and his body won’t listen, lungs exploding, ribs breaking, blood on fire, fingers freezing off, and he’s alone.

No. Taemin is alone. And if Jonghyun is this scared Taemin must be so scared, if Jonghyun can’t put himself back together she might take Taemin apart, and if she hurts him—

_please god, not taeminnie. not taeminnie not taeminnie not taeminnie PLEASE_

Taemin needed Jonghyun and he wasn’t there. Taemin needs him, _right now._ No more crying. No more anything.

The elevator’s busy but the stairs take him out, split his knee open and crack his chin. He sees black, tastes red. Useless, useless. But then their door is right there, he’s here, he made it.

“Where the fuck have you been?!”

Jonghyun doesn’t have time for this. He shoulders past Kibum, Jinki too, “Jonghyunnie, what,” and Minho’s too slow, rising from the couch, face tightening with pain, and his keys are right where he left them, the last time he took Taemin home from SM, still warm from his kisses. Clothes hamper. Sweatpants, grungy, halfway inside out. Pocket. There.

There.

Okay. Next thing. Jungnang-gu. Sinnae-dong.

…Sinnae-dong. Moon Mikyung.

_It’s too far out of your way, I live in Sinnae-dong._

FUCK. He’s so blind. He’s so fucking stupid.

If he doesn’t remember the way—he thinks he does. He thinks. 

That’s not good enough.

He has to know.

And Minho has to, “Get out of my way.”

“Not until you tell us where you’re going. Not until you tell us what the fuck is going on _now._ Hyung, this is crazy. You’re being crazy.”

Jonghyun’s fine being crazy, he’s fine with anything, if that’s what it takes. He makes a grab for Minho. Minho’s eyes widen, but he doesn’t go for Jonghyun’s wrists, doesn’t kick him in the shin or anything, and split second later he’s on his ass on the floor, low cry, pain, surprise, but something. Jonghyun will be sorry later. He’s sorry now. But there’s no time.

“Stay with him, Kibummie. Wait for Manager Hyung. I’ll take care of Jonghyunnie,” and, “When Taeminnie comes back call us!”

Jonghyun doesn’t have the breath to tell Jinki there’s no us, and Taemin’s not coming back if Jonghyun doesn’t hurry. Slamming the door in Jinki’s face does no good, and Jonghyun doesn’t have the breath for anything right now. If he hadn’t just run to the store and back. If his nerves weren’t making him so stupid and clumsy. If he could remember where the fuck he fucking PARKED—

“Over here, Jonghyunnie.” Jinki’s standing on the driver’s side, blocking the door, Jonghyun’s coat in his hands, this look on his face that says _I’m not going anywhere and neither are you._ He won’t move and nothing Jonghyun tries on him can make him, he’s not hobbled like Minho and he’s got ten pounds on Jonghyun and he never knows what’s good for him. And now his fingers are grinding the bones of Jonghyun’s wrists to dust and he’s telling him, “I’m driving. Just tell me where to go.”

Five minutes in the car, more black and silent and empty than the world outside their windows, and Jonghyun tells him more than that.

“You’re saying that girl is smoking girl? The clerk is smoking girl is Seo Bom.”

“Yes.”

“I can’t remember her face,” Jinki says, almost bewildered. “I’m really, really trying, but it’s no good. I can’t.”

“It doesn’t matter. You’ll see when we get there.”

Jinki’s mouth tightens. “You think she has Taeminnie, she kidnapped him. But how?” He turns when Jonghyun says, but doesn’t let up. “She probably weighs a hundred pounds.”

“Taeminnie’s only a hundred fifteen. If she had a Taser or something, my sister worked nights and she had one, self-defense,” Jonghyun says, so frustrated he’s sick with it, trying to explain himself. Explain _her._ “She has a suitcase for her books. She left the books and she took him,” and, “She’s fucked up, she’s not right, she hates her life. I would know what that looks like, hyung, I know what it’s like.” Jinki just looks at him and Jonghyun can’t take it anymore. “You’re just gonna have to believe me. If you can’t you can shut up.”

And then Jinki does and it’s worse. It’s so much worse.

_Tell me he’ll be okay, hyung._

Jinki can’t lie. He sucks at it. He knows Jonghyun would know.

So Jonghyun bites his tongue. Puts everything he has into lying to himself instead.

She won’t hurt Taemin. It’s Jonghyun she wants. She’ll let him go when she has Jonghyun. She doesn’t know hurting Taemin would hurt Jonghyun more than anything she could do to him.

She took him and went back home. She wants to be found. She wants to be stopped.

Taemin will be okay.

 

First parking spot they see, five blocks from her building, Jinki cuts the engine and throws Jonghyun’s coat at him, telling him, “You’re no good to Taeminnie if you freeze to death.”

Into the dark again.

Her building looks no different than last time. Except the lobby is too big, the stairs are too high, and Jinki might die trying to keep up with him. Jonghyun might too. He should have done more cardio. He shouldn’t have worked out for vanity, peace of mind, me time, whatever the fuck, he should have been training for this. Whenever he said his muscles were for show, Taemin used to tease him, _you’ll be able to protect your girlfriend, hyung~_

Her door. At last. He pounds on it without thinking, doubled over, wheezing, seeing spots, but there’s no answer for him. Nor for Jinki, when he throws himself against it. It shudders and creaks, and then next door pounds on the wall, hard enough to bring the building down. _SHUT UP._

“Passcode.” Jinki gulps for air. “Did you watch her put it in?”

No.

Jinki gives him two seconds and then braces himself for another attempt. Jonghyun throws his arm out, catching him across the chest, because he’s thinking. He just, he needs to think.

_080525_

Nope.

“Our debut? It’s not about us, it’s about you,” Jinki says. “Try your birthday.”

It can’t hurt. And if it does who cares. It’s only him this time. Jonghyun can take it.

_900408_

Beep. Click.

“Taeminnie?” Nothing. “Taeminnie!”

Nothing. Just silence.

Her room is blacker than black. Jinki crowds in behind him and the door swings shut, and Jonghyun is blind. All he can do is feel his way, heart in his throat, nerves on fire. His knee makes first contact, sharp echoing pain, and then his hands. Desktop. Spiral notebook. Scissors. Marker. Pencil.

And then Jinki gets the light and all Jonghyun can see is himself. Happy, sad, annoyed, amused, tired to the bone, bored out of his mind, smiling, frowning, winking, yawning, eating, sleeping, walking, talking, killing time. Existing.

Lining the walls floor to ceiling, photos, photos, photos, and there, spilled out on the desk.

“She made more than she sent.”

A lot more. Back at the dorm, they have seven of these photos. But she has dozens here. Some are already ruined, and some are waiting to die, staring at the ceiling.

“Does she love you or hate you?”

Both. Neither. How would Jonghyun know. How can he waste his breath on her, when Taemin isn’t here. Which means he’s still out there somewhere. Which means Jonghyun has nothing, he’s nowhere, all he did coming here was waste time. He might be out of it. It might be too late.

_Please. Don’t let her hurt Taeminnie. PLEASE._

He’s not going there.

“There has to be something else here. Something about her, some other place she’d go. Don’t just stand there, help me look.”

He sweeps the desktop clean, photos skittering to the floor in an avalanche of Jonghyuns. The notebook’s school shit. Papers, same. Nothing shakes loose from her books. Her drawers are empty.

“I saw Jonghyun oppa again today. I’m sure now. He doesn’t remember me. It’s better this way, so why do I feel so lonely? But it’s not fair to blame him. I wouldn’t remember me, either. And maybe I’ll get to see him tomorrow.” Jinki, cross-legged on her bed, bent over a little notebook. He sees Jonghyun looking. “It was under her pillow.”

Jonghyun has nothing to say to that. He has nothing to say to her.

“Dispatch says he’s dating. As long as he doesn’t bring her to the store, I’m fine. As long as I don’t have to see him with her. I keep looking at the pictures, though. Why do I do this to myself?”

“If it’s not useful I don’t need to hear it, hyung,” Jonghyun snaps. “Stop fucking around.”

Next…cupboard. Tooth brush and mug, electric burner and kettle and instant coffee, _do you want to come in for a bit? It’s not much, but I have coffee,_ and Jonghyun’s going to be sick.

He can go be sick in her closet, the only place left to look. Halfway there his phone buzzes to life and his world stops.

“Taeminnie.”

Jinki’s eyes snap up to meet his, and Jonghyun said that out loud. Second ring. He picks up, and when he tries to talk his heart comes out his mouth. 

“Taeminnie?”

Silence. And then.

“I was going to let you go.”

It’s her.

“Where’s Taeminnie?” Stop. Breathe. “Is he okay? Tell me he’s okay. Let me talk to him, just for a second, just so I know. Please.”

All that gets him is her voice, right in his ear, asking him, “Why is it always him?” and Jonghyun doesn’t want to talk to her, he doesn’t give a fuck, he just wants Taemin back. “You never talk to me. It’s always him. Always. Even back then. But I never thought it was like _that.”_

He doesn’t get a say. He can’t fuck this up. And somehow Jinki’s there, squeezing his shoulder, eyes eating up his face, mouthing, _her?_

Jonghyun puts everything he has into keeping his voice even, and starting up, “Bom-ssi—”

“You were surprised I knew your name. I wish I was surprised when you didn’t know mine,” she says over him, cold and calm. Dead. “I pretended not to know you the first time because I was scared you would know me. I felt so ugly. I should have known better.”

No, Jonghyun should have. He should have seen her for what she was.

Carefully as he can, out of his mind with fear, he says, “From the training program, right?” and she doesn’t make him wait for her reply. She sees right through him.

“You still can’t remember, can you? You’re just saying what you think I want to hear. Even now, you’re not thinking of me.”

Jonghyun has to say something. Anything. “You smoked. Up on the roof, all the time. You gave me a cigarette once,” but that’s nothing, and he’s already run out of words. Her name tastes so bitter, “Bom-ssi,” but he spits it out, because it’s all he has left. Maybe he should have tried Bom-ah, maybe that would’ve sounded sweeter, made her listen to him. “Whatever was wrong back then, is it still wrong now? It’s like I said. Things like that never go away. But this isn’t the way. This isn’t right. You’ll just hate yourself.”

“I love you,” she says, voice shaking, “that’s enough for me. That was always enough.”

“You can have me. But let Taeminnie go. Please.”

Jinki’s fingers dig into Jonghyun’s shoulder. It hurts. It all hurts. Even her silence.

But then she tells him, “I was fine not having you. When you moved I wasn’t going to follow you. I was going to stay at the store and rot. Go back home and rot. Rot.” Jonghyun wishes she’d do worse, but she has Taemin. Until he gets him back, Jonghyun needs her like breathing. He needs to hear this. Find a way in. “I tried to be happy for you, for so long. But what about me?” She takes a deep shuddering breath but it just makes her crazier. “I can’t lose you to him. It makes no sense, it’s too much. Why him? Why not me? I’d rather take your eyes out than let you look at him.” She has already, a million times. “I’m right here. I’ve always been right here.”

“He didn’t do anything wrong, he has nothing to do with this, so please.”

“He doesn’t? Did you not see the pictures I sent you?”

“He’s worked so hard, Bom-ssi. That’s his whole life.” Jonghyun doesn’t know where he’s finding the breath to say these things, just that he has to make her _listen._ “Taeminnie’s mine. Please. I’ll do anything.”

Of all things she laughs.

“Anything?”

“Tell me where to go and I’ll come. Tell me what to do. Just promise me you’ll let him go.”

She takes some time with that one. She’s thinking it over. She’s thinking about it. He got her to think.

And finally she says, “Come and we’ll talk. I wanted to see your face one last time, anyway.” Something in her voice stops Jonghyun’s heart. “Training center. Rooftop. Hurry. I’m so tired of waiting.”

“The old one?”

He knows the answer. He knows he knows. He still has to ask. He has to _know._

“Come alone.”

 

This time it’s three blocks away when Jinki stops. He wants to get closer, but Jonghyun doesn’t want to risk it, so here they are, parking lot tucked behind a noodle shop, three other cars and the smell of food hanging in the air. Jonghyun used to take Taemin here for naengmyun over summer break. Taemin would eat enough for three people, and then talk and talk on the way back to the training center. It was always so easy to get Taemin to smile at him, so much harder to make him forget himself like that, trust Jonghyun with stuff he never told anyone else, parts of him he never let anyone else see. Stupid things like _I failed my midterms but I haven’t told my parents,_ and _Jonginnie’s scared of sleeping in the practice room, but what’s so scary about it,_ and _Do you want to sleep over tonight, hyung? It’s getting dark earlier. You might not make it home in time._

“Don’t come after me.” Jonghyun’s pretty sure Jinki left his things at home, so he presses his phone into Jinki’s hand, staring into his face, trying to tell him things he doesn’t have the words for. _I’m not scared. I can do this._ “Wait as long as you can before you call for help. I won’t stop you, I won’t even try, so don’t stop me.”

If he tries saying goodbye he doesn’t know what’ll happen, so he goes for his door. Jinki’s hand shoots out, grabbing his arm, keeping him right where he is.

“Be careful, Jonghyunnie,” Jinki says, instead of the stuff he probably should. Like, _You’re crazy._ Or, _You don’t know what you’re walking into, you don’t know what you’re doing. You can’t even protect yourself. You can’t protect Taeminnie._ “I mean it, okay? Don’t do anything stupid.”

“Don’t worry,” Jonghyun gets out somehow. “I’ll bring Taeminnie back.”

Jinki’s expression warps, like he’s a breath away from crying or laughing or screaming, but all he can say is, “She’s doing this to hurt _you.”_

“I know.” He just doesn’t care. He’s only saying it so Jinki will hear. “It’s Taeminnie. I can take anything else, but if she hurts him.”

Jinki snaps a little, fingers biting into Jonghyun’s flesh, breathing tight, eyes burning. “If she hurts either of you I’ll kill her myself,” he says jerkily, and then, “You’re coming back, okay? No ifs.” Jonghyun won’t let himself look away. He watches as Jinki puts himself back together, enough to say, “Go, already. Before I break your legs. _Go.”_

Jinki lets him go, and all of the sudden it’s like Jonghyun’s paralyzed.

“Thank you, hyung.” _For everything._ “You were right, I probably would’ve crashed on the way here.”

And then Jonghyun’s on his own. He’s all Taemin’s got.

This walk never used to be long enough. Jonghyun always wanted to hear more, he never wanted to get out of the sun and back to his life, tell Taemin, _I’ll come get you when it’s time to go, okay? Don’t leave without me,_ and take Taemin's smile for an answer. But now, in the dark and the cold, in the end, he has a hundred years. He spends it not thinking about what he’s going to see. He spends it praying to every god he knows.

He spends it with Taemin.

And now somehow he’s here. It’s right across the street, then right in front of him. Rising up like a ghost, windows like eyes, the training center.

There’s nothing to it. There’s no one here to see. He’s not the first, he’s supposed to be here. All he has to do is skip the lobby doors, circle around the building, find the side door with the funny knob, the one he and Taemin used to sneak back in after the janitors left for the night. Jonghyun told Taemin about it, but another trainee told him.

And someone told Seo Bom. It’s wide open, waiting for him.

He takes a deep breath. Releases it. Counts his heartbeats in his head. Fills himself with Taemin, and goes in.

The training center’s been under renovation for a year or two now, but still, he goes by memory, one foot in front of the other, world narrowed down to three feet in front of him. Someday it’s going to be an office building, like Jinki said, but right now it’s nothing, ugly on the outside, torn up inside same as Jonghyun, ceiling tiles on the floor, dust and debris everywhere, walls spilling their guts, wiring and plumbing and pink insulation.

Once he hits the stairs it gets easier, and then harder and harder. Up, up, up, faster. faster. faster. Hurry. Footfalls echoing, heart hammering so loudly she probably hears him coming. And with every breath, every heartbeat, Taemin. Taemin. Taemin.

Second floor. Third. Fourth. Each step feels like his last. His leg cramps up, vicious, crippling. He has this thought, _I won’t be able to dance tomorrow, I’ll have to sit out like Minho,_ and it’s so normal it’s crazy, but he left laughing and crying behind at the dorm. Right now it’s enough just to breathe. breathe. breathe.

And then, finally.

Finally.

There’s no moon, nor stars. Just the city lights at their feet.

_Taeminnie._

“Don’t come any closer,” she says.

The wind eats her words, but then Taemin sways, teetering, wide-eyed, voiceless, trapped inside himself, mouth taped up and wrists bound, Taser digging into his side, forty foot drop three steps back.

Jonghyun freezes.

“Taeminnie, hyung is here,” he says, just trying to keep his voice from shaking like the rest of him, keeping his eyes fixed on Taemin. “I’m here. Just hang in there, okay? I’m here, I won’t let anything happen to you.”

“That’s not up to you,” she tells him, cutting right through him, snapping him in half. “Something will happen to him. I’ll let you choose what.”

She yanks at Taemin’s collar, jerking his shoulders, cutting off his breathing, and Jonghyun has to make himself look, give her his eyes. Hair blown back from her face, crazy and tangled, uniform vest hanging off her, dark sky and darker eyes, like ice in his heart.

Before he can stop himself he’s saying, “Don’t hurt him,” warning her, pleading with her, _anything._

Her mouth twists.

“Where were you when I was hurting? I’m the one who’s hurt.” It’s like she’s forcing each word out of her chest, coughing them up like blood. “It _hurts._ It never goes away. Every night I see you. Every night I don’t.”

_Taeminnie, you’re okay, right? You’re not hurt where I can’t see? You’re going to be okay. Look at hyung. Look only at me._

“I tried to be a fan, a Shawol, a Blinger, whatever. I tried. It’s so hard to lie to yourself, you know? It makes everything else so much harder. I’m not in love with him. I’m in love with _you.”_

She doesn’t know him. She doesn’t fucking know anything about him, she doesn’t know his life, she doesn’t know his thoughts or his feelings or his pain, she only knows her own. And if she does, if she knows what she’s doing to him, this isn’t love. But calm. _Calm._

“I’m not the person you need, Bom-ssi,” is all he can think to say. From there it gets easier. “I can’t be what you want. I’m no good, you must have figured that out by now. You’ve seen all my bad sides.”

Her laughter pierces the night, sets his teeth on edge. “You’re not good enough for me, but you’re good enough for him, is that it?”

Quicker than Jonghyun can think he tells her, “It’s not like that,” but then he’s out of words, out of places to run. If he lies to her it might make things worse, and he won’t do that to Taemin. If this is the end, if this is the last time…“I need him.”

“I need you,” she snaps, like this is an argument or a game, but it’s not. It’s life. His and Taemin’s. Hers.

“It’s okay if you hate me, it’s okay if you take it out on me, but don’t do this to yourself. Don’t do this to Taeminnie.”

She lets go of Taemin for something in her pocket, and Jonghyun has one second where all the muscles in his body are screaming at him NOW NOW NOW, his heart beats, he breathes in, he blinks, and—

Too slow. She crackles the Taser warningly, digging it into Taemin’s side, writes pain and fear on his face for Jonghyun to see. Holds up her phone, and there’s Taemin again. Leaning into Jonghyun’s kisses, ears red, all smiles, so happy, not knowing what’s coming, what Jonghyun just did to him.

“I only showed you one photo, but I have a million. See?” She flicks through. More Taemin, more Jonghyun. Kissing. Holding hands. Only two out of three people in the world. And then she closes her fist around them. When he looks up she meets his eyes. Holds them. Says, “Either I send them to Dispatch, or I push him off. You can have the phone, or you can have him, but you can’t have it both ways, Jonghyun-ssi. You can’t have everything.”

That’s not a choice. She’s not human if she thinks it is.

“Bom-ssi. You said you wanted to talk to me. I’m here, I’ll listen. Take me instead. Hurt me instead.”

“He might not die from this height, but he’ll break his legs. His back too, probably.” Her mouth twists, halfway between a smile and a grimace, ripping his insides to shreds, and somehow this is real. “He won’t dance again, whatever you choose. But what about you? What about Shinee?”

The second she’s done talking Jonghyun finds the breath to say, “Give him back to me.”

It takes her too long to get it. He spends the wait with Taemin, staring into his face. Telling him everything he can with his.

_Hyung is sorry. I’m sorry I did this to you and I’m sorry I can’t fix it. I’m sorry, I love you. You can hate me, but I love you. You can spend the rest of your life hating me all you want, but you have to live._

_Whatever happens, don’t look back, Taemin-ah._

And then her eyes narrow and her face shutters and all she has for him is, “What?”

Jonghyun takes a deep breath.

“You said it was my choice. Send the photos. Tell whoever you want,” he says. “I want Taeminnie. Give him back to me.”

Silence, cold and black and twisted, night crushing in on them.

“It’s that easy for you? Do you think this is a joke? Do you think I’m a joke?” She stares and stares into him. He stands his ground. Skin crawling, hot and cold and sick to his stomach, out of his mind, he stares back into her. When she smiles, it’s for him to see, tight and painful, so fake it must be real. “Then take a good long look at me now. Look me in the face. Do you want this to be your life? It’s not a life. This isn’t living, Jonghyun-ssi!”

She only stops to breathe, gasping, chest heaving, hands like claws, dragging Taemin down into a half crouch, taking his legs out from under him, sending him to his knees on the cement and wrenching a cry out of him Jonghyun feels more than hears. It takes Taemin so long to raise his head, find Jonghyun again, enough for Jonghyun to swallow his tears, be there for him when he does.

And in the meantime, _her._

“Do you think success is everything, do you think happiness is that easy?” He has to fight for each word, fight to breathe, fight to _think._ He has nothing left for her. “There are things you learn to live with, and there are things you can’t live without. That’s life. That’s just how it goes.”

Jonghyun’s all Taemin has right now. Taemin’s all Jonghyun’s ever had.

“You’re throwing your dream away. You’re throwing yourself away.” She doesn’t believe him. She doesn’t have to. “You’ll start at zero. Less than that. Your fans will hate you and they’ll torture you, until they forget you. You’ll never sing outside a noraebang again. You can learn to live with that?”

“Yes.”

She laughs again. Laughs and laughs, and Jonghyun can’t take much more of this. Taemin can’t.

“Bom-ssi, listen to me,” he says, desperate. “Before anything else, you have to live with yourself.”

It’s too late for her already. She’ll remember Jonghyun for the rest of her life. Jonghyun will weigh her down, for the rest of her life. Twist her insides up, cut off her air, squeeze her heart till it bursts, turn her blood black, until she hates him as much as she says she loves him now. But if Taemin makes it out of this, if Jonghyun gets him back, no matter what happens, how hard it is to start over, how hard it is to forget the person he was, Jonghyun oppa, Shinee’s Jonghyun, Jonghyun will forget her.

She doesn’t care. She doesn’t want to hear it.

“I don’t have anything. I don’t have anyone. Every time I try, I get nothing back. I just lose another part of myself.” Her eyes are burning up in her head, burning into him, like she’s going to make him understand if it’s the last thing she does. “You don’t know what that’s like! You don’t want to.”

“I’m not you.” It’s the only thing he can tell her. “You’re not me. I’m no one without Taeminnie. I’m nothing.”

The night sighs and the wind picks up, bitter cold, biting into Jonghyun, buffeting Taemin, whipping her hair into her eyes, stealing her voice. Just for that second, it’s just the two of them, Jonghyun and Taemin.

Taemin doesn’t look down. He doesn’t look at her. He keeps his eyes on Jonghyun. He doesn’t look away.

Amd then she says, “You said he was your life, before. Maybe you love him, maybe he loves you…but he can’t live your life for you.”

“I don’t need him to. I don’t want that for him. I want to make him happy.” _I’m fine as Jonghyun hyung. That’s enough for me. More than enough._ “He makes me happy. He likes me for me, he makes it okay to be myself.”

She laughs, sobs, screams, this inhuman broken sound.

“You told me SM cast you for your face, that day. That’s why I fell for you, too. The first time I saw you my heart went crazy,” she says, staring into his eyes now. “I don’t know when things changed, but I started to hate looking at you. I hate it so much, now that I’m not the only one.” The thing on her face isn’t a smile, but it’s too late to tell her that. “But then, the other night, you told me it’s what’s inside that counts.”

It was too late then. If he’d gone in, listened to her troubles, drank her coffee, would he be at the dorm right now, eating Jinki’s cake, butterflies in his stomach, holding Taemin’s hand? If he’d seen her room, all those pictures of him, she never would have let him out. She was never going to let him go. She never will. But _Taemin._

Like she’s read his mind, her face twists, and she closes her fist in Taemin’s hair, yanking his head back, dragging him to his feet, onto his toes, off balance and shaky.

“Please,” he can’t breathe he can’t breathe he can’t breathe, “You said you wouldn’t hurt him, you said it was my choice.”

BREATHE.

“Jonghyun-ssi...” At his name she stops, tasting it, burning it into her mind, before the wind takes it away from her. She goes for her phone, and yanks Taemin half a step back. Another. “You’re nothing without him, but I’m nothing without you. We’re the same.”

nononoNONO **NO**

Out of nowhere the silence creaks, thuds, shatters, and then there’s Jinki’s voice behind him, “Jonghyunnie, RUN,” and something hits his shoulder, sends his head spinning, and for a second, just a second, she takes her eyes off Jonghyun. Stumbles back. Staggers into Taemin. Takes his legs out from under him, weak and numb and shaking.

She lets him go, and he falls.

RUN.

He lives and dies in one heartbeat, throwing himself forward, arms outstretched, and then his fingers close around Taemin’s wrist, nylon and skin and bones, cold as ice, and he’s got him. He’s got him. He’s got Taemin and he’s not letting him go ever again. The other hand is nothing, stretching for Taemin’s arm, his elbow, Taemin’s weight dragging him across the cement, wide dark eyes staring into his, his whole world. He doesn’t care if his heart bursts, his muscles snap, his bone break, if his arm gets ripped off, if his body is torn apart, he’s not letting go.

“It’s okay, Taeminnie. You’re okay. I’ve got you.”

He just has to fucking hold on. His lungs start working again. His heart kicks in. He gathers his strength. He puts everything into it, everything he has, everything he is, his body, his heart, his life, and _lifts._

Maybe he’s screaming. Maybe he’s dying. The only thing he knows is Taemin.

And then there are arms around his legs, his middle, dragging him back, and it’s all he can do to hang on, never letting go, NEVER, “It’s okay, hyung, I’ve got him, I’ve got him. Let go, let me untie him already,” and then he’s flat on his back, “What the fuck is this, stockings? From the store? You just looked at them and thought hey, useful?! WHAT THE FUCK. You fucking crazy bitch, you’re lucky Jinki hyung got to you first,” and Jonghyun sees stars.

“She’s not worth it, Kibummie. Her life’s over anyway,” Jinki says. "She's not worth yours."

“Here, Taemin-ah, we have to get your blood flowing. Sit still, hyung will do it.”

“Fucking _listen._ Let Minho do it. You can’t take care of yourself, I can’t even let you go to the store on your own, just look at you. This might hurt a little, try not to yell my ear off, okay?”

And then, “Hyung?”

_Taeminnie._

When Jonghyun opens his eyes he’s there, crouched over him, helping him sit up. Next second he’s in Jonghyun’s arms, solid and whole, unbroken everywhere Jonghyun thinks to check, breathing into his neck, soft and warm.

He thinks he’s crying, he thinks he’s babbling, he doesn’t know what he’s saying, just Taemin’s name over and over and over. He doesn’t know how long it is before the sirens come. A hundred years, a hundred thousand, an eternity, a minute or two. Just that Taemin’s here with him, holding him through it.

Just Taemin.

“JONGHYUN-AH! TAEMIN-AH!”

Manager Hyung bursts onto the roof, wild-eyed, red-faced, chest heaving, coughing up a lung. He takes one look at the five of them and falls to his knees, head in his hands, whole body shaking. He can’t get himself up again so he crawls over to them instead, staring and staring like he’s afraid they’ll disappear if he takes his eyes off them for a second. Jonghyun floats while he rages and apologizes and thanks God and curses them, again and again, round and round, until finally, finally he asks Jinki, “What’s she doing here? It was her?”

She won’t answer for herself, sitting dead-eyed and limp in Jinki’s grip, and none of them have words for what just happened.

Jinki presses her phone into his hand. “The pictures, hyung. They’re here. I stopped her from sending them out.”

Manager Hyung looks like he’s about to explode all over again, but instead he scrubs his tears away, and struggles to his feet.

“I’m sorry, Jinki-yah. That was hyung’s job,” he gets out, choking up, smiling through it somehow. “Shit. You did well, you’re the best. I called the police, they’ll take care of her, and then the company can figure the rest out. Or go fuck themselves.”

Manager Hyung keeps going until he runs out of words, and then he throws her phone to the cement, stomps down until the photos are gone forever. Then stomps on it some more, but he can’t make it so they never existed, and this night never came.

“It’s okay, hyung,” Taemin says into his neck. “Everything’s gonna be okay.”

Jonghyun shuts his eyes on her, tonight, this winter, the photos, that morning he first saw himself eyeless and faceless, all the time he’s wasted hating himself since, Moon Mikyung, Jihye, Jinmyung noona, _her._ Seo Bom.

He holds Taemin tight, breathes him in, and lets it all out. 

It’s okay. It’s over. It’s okay.

Taemin is here.

 

.  
.  
.

 

“This is what our comeback looks like?”

That’s just what Kibum says. It’s all over his face, what he really means.

_We’re still having one?!_

That’s what he said two weeks ago when Manager Hyung asked them if they needed another day off, more or less. _Are we talking about work right now? Are you fucking kidding me?_

Taemin would have gone in on his own if they hadn’t followed him.

The rep from SM doesn’t get any of that, but she doesn’t have any answers for them anyway. She’s only here to talk over their schedule and take their questions because the higher ups think it’s a waste of their time. Nobody cares if it’s a waste of Shinee’s.

Everything is right now. Maybe not, maybe nothing is. It’s been two weeks since that night, and they have another week and a half before “Sherlock” drops, and nothing but the practice room in between. Day-to-day, minute-to-minute, Jonghyun doesn’t know how he’s supposed to be feeling about anything.

She’s long gone before any of them speak up. And then it’s Jinki, just to say, “The more I look at it the worse it looks,” lying flat on his back on the floor, turning the printout this way and that, like he’s trying to see if anything will shake loose, fall out of their calendar.

“It’s not that bad, hyung,” Minho says, but he doesn’t sound too convinced himself, glancing at Jonghyun, and then Taemin.

Jinki groans. “It’s bad.”

It’s no better or worse than it ever is. They’ll spend the next three months of their lives in hell, like they always do. Schedule after schedule after schedule. After schedule. After schedule.

…After schedule.

“What do you think, Taeminnie?”

Once it’s out of Jonghyun’s mouth his chest goes tight, waiting to see if Taemin will reply like normal, if he’s not somewhere else, staring out the window, stuck in his own head.

Taemin doesn’t make him wait long, throwing Jonghyun a look, leaning back on his hands, bangs still stuck to his forehead. “That there’s nothing to think about?” That’s so like him Jonghyun almost smiles. Taemin’s not even thinking about it now. “It’s enough just to do it. Thinking about it makes it worse, so don’t think.”

“You’re saying I’m the problem? Aigoo.”

Taemin turns his smile on Jinki, but he doesn’t deny it. Just climbs to his feet and heads for the door. Before Jonghyun can get up, Kibum is there.

“When are you not a problem?” he says to Jinki, and then, “Taemin-ah, where are you going?”

“Bathroom.”

“Wait up, I have to pee.”

Taemin doesn’t stop to wait for him. Jonghyun listens to Kibum catch up, footsteps clattering down the hall, and then goes back to nothing. It’s just him and the ceiling.

And then him and Jinki. “What about you, Jonghyunnie? Can you handle this much?”

“You’re the only one who can’t, hyung.”

Minho makes an approving noise, looms into Jonghyun’s airspace, thumps his shoulder. “Keeping busy is best.”

Whatever he says. Jonghyun’s not so sure when Kibum and Taemin get back, and “Sherlock” cranks up for the seven millionth time today, but he knows he’ll think again when practice is over, and he’s staring down the long night ahead of him. Before his sweat’s even dry, his stomach drops to his shoes, watching Taemin gather his things, and turn his phone on.

It almost buzzes out of his hand. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven.

“Was that all from your mom?” Taemin doesn’t give Minho an answer, too busy reading, but Jonghyun doesn’t know why anyone would need to ask. It’s all right there in the set of Taemin’s shoulders, his furrowed brow, tightening mouth. Minho takes a little longer to catch up, but then all he says is, “You let it go that long?” He puts on his firmest hyung voice. “Taemin-ah.”

Which, what was Taemin supposed to do? He’s been working. He hasn’t left this room all day. She has to know that. She has to.

“Text her now.”

With Kibum, it’s always so hard to tell what’s a suggestion and what’s a command.

Either way, Taemin doesn’t get it. “What for? I’ll see her in like half an hour.”

“It’d take you two seconds,” Kibum snaps, snatching Taemin’s phone right out of his hand. “Here. ‘Sorry to make you worry, my phone died. Leaving work now. Love you, mom~’”

Taemin’s ears go red, but Kibum gives it back to him before he can try anything, and he’s the one who hits send in the end.

“Aigoo. See, was that hard?”

Minho pets Taemin’s hair, and Jinki leans around him to pinch his cheek.

“Be good to your parents, Taeminnie. I know it’s hard on you, but this is harder for them.”

They get him every night, and they knew Taemin was safe before they even knew anything had happened to him. Everything Taemin went through, he’ll have to go through again and again, until they let him go. Let him live his own life.

Jonghyun can’t swallow back the bitter taste in his mouth, but he keeps it out of his voice when he says, “Leave him be. He’s no good at phones.” He reaches for Taemin, pressing his hand to the small of his back, drawing him to his side, away from the others. “Let’s go, Taeminnie. I’ll wait with you.”

Taemin frowns at him.

“I can get a taxi on my own. I’m good for that much.”

It’s just stress. It’s everyone else. Jonghyun doesn’t want it to be him, too. He doesn’t want to be too much.

“I already called for today,” he says, giving Taemin a smile, big and stupid. “You can just pay me back.”

“See you tomorrow, Taeminnie.”

“Be good, or we’ll never get you back. They’ll decide we’ve raised you wrong.”

“Think of me when you’re eating your mom’s food~”

Out the door and into the dying light, and they’re alone. It’s the first time all day. It feels like the first time in Jonghyun’s life. Taemin doesn’t feel like talking, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Jonghyun in front of the building, sneaking little looks at him. When he finds Jonghyun’s hand with his own, Jonghyun has to try so hard not to push or pull, lace their fingers together or bring Taemin into his arms. Just lets him play with his fingers, and grows a little warmer inside, and a little warmer.

“Text me when you get home, okay?” he says.

“Okay.”

“Don’t forget.” Taemin always does, and then Jonghyun will spend all night texting him, and then next morning maybe Taemin will reply, _did u sleep._ Jonghyun doesn’t want to go back there, and now he can’t stop himself from saying, “Promise me?”

 _“Okay,_ hyung,” Taemin says.

Like Taemin’s the only one going crazy here.

“What are you doing tonight?”

“Eating, then sleeping.”

For a second Jonghyun is so frustrated he can’t see straight, but Taemin returns his look with one of his own, like, _It’s the truth. What do you want me to say?_

All Jonghyun can do is try again. “What’s your mom watching these days?”

“I don’t know,” Taemin says. That’s the first lie he’s told, and he lasts maybe a second before he’s rattling off, “Kim Heeae’s having an affair with her kid’s teacher’s husband…What about you?”

“What?”

Taemin stares into his face like he’s trying to read ahead, get to the answer first. “What are you going to do?”

It should be so easy to say it. _Nothing._ But Jonghyun doesn’t want to do that to Taemin. He just doesn’t know what he can tell him, that he already misses Taemin right now. That the others are almost as bad as Taemin’s parents, feeding him and babysitting him and checking on him, that he’s all alone in their room and he can’t sleep without Taemin, that he doesn’t know where he’ll end up when he closes his eyes, back on that rooftop maybe, maybe in her room. But he’s not dragging Taemin back there, and he doesn’t want to see what any of that other stuff could do to Taemin’s face. And Taemin’s coming home to him, sooner or later. When promotions start he has to.

Jonghyun could spend forever trying to find the right words, but the taxi pulls up to the curb first.

Taemin looks at him instead.

Jonghyun pets his hair, pinches his cheek instead of kissing him good night. It takes everything he has just to make himself say, “Go on, Taeminnie.”

Taemin looks some more.

Jonghyun reaches for him, just to take him by the shoulders, put him in the taxi himself if Taemin’s really going to make him, but he ends up in Taemin’s arms. And for this one moment, everything is okay. He has Taemin, so warm and soft, sweat and strawberry-scented shampoo, and his voice in his ear, telling Jonghyun, “If I forget, just text me,” instead of good night.

Jonghyun holds on. He wants to cover Taemin in kisses, fall asleep right here, steal Taemin away. He doesn’t want to wait until tomorrow to see him again. He doesn’t want to let go. He never wants to let go.

He watches the taxi until it disappears. On his way back to the others and Manager Hyung, the rest of his life that’s not Taemin, he watches the places where Taemin has just been. He’ll spend the rest of the night watching the spaces where Taemin should be.

Where he will be.

 

Taemin’s bed is on the left. Green mattress. Taemin sleeps on his right side and Jonghyun is pretty sure Taemin will like him better than the wall, and Taemin says likes pastels but he’s said he doesn’t care too, so he’s green. Maybe Jonghyun gave him a pink blanket. Maybe he should find a picture of Taemin to hang over it, something that’s only cute to him. And all that is useless, because they’ll be sleeping together anyway. Taemin’s bed is his bed~

Taemin, Taemin, Taemin~

Taemin.

_Taeminnie…_

Jonghyun rolls over and looks at the wall instead. Squeezes his pillow tight. Squeezes his eyes shut tighter. Doesn’t work. Still awake. Still alone. Still…one o’clock. Got five hours to go.

One fifteen.

One thirty.

Maybe Jonghyun should take a shower. Maybe he should try the couch. Go for a walk.

His phone is right there.

One forty.

One forty-two, three, four—

He thinks he’s hearing things when the door snicks open. The floorboards creak and his heart leaps, but then Jinki says, “Manager Hyung’s snoring.”

Oh.

It’s too much work to ignore him, so Jonghyun twists around to tell him, “That’s Taeminnie’s bed.” Jinki stops short, knee already sinking into the mattress, pillow hugged to his chest, eyes half-closed. All that’s left is to give in before Jinki stops listening. “It’s just this one time, okay?”

Jinki doesn’t make a dirty joke or anything, just hums at him and burrows in, already drifting off. Give him five minutes and he’ll leave Jonghyun behind, and it’ll only be one fifty. Four hours left of this shit. Four hours alone with himself.

“Hyung.”

It just pops out of him.

Jinki groans, but he can’t ignore Jonghyun. “What?”

“How far do you think we’ll go with ‘Sherlock?’”

“Yeouido?”

Ha ha.

“Do you like it?”

“Mm.”

Jonghyun needs to ask harder questions, not stuff Jinki could answer in his sleep.

“But you’ve liked other songs better?”

Jinki takes some time with that one, finally tells Jonghyun, “I still like ‘Replay’ best.”

Jonghyun does too. “Replay” was their first. It was the song of their lives. Nothing’s been the same since, and now everything’s changed again.

He takes a deep breath.

“That night…”

Jinki goes still under his blanket.

“What about it?”

“I didn’t know you were there until the end. How long did you wait?”

Jonghyun doesn’t think he can ask, _How much did you hear?_

“Five, ten minutes before I called Kibummie and Joomin hyung? And then I stayed inside and hid behind the door until things got desperate,” Jinki says. He must feel Jonghyun’s look, because he goes on right away, “You said to wait as long as I could. I did.” He lasts maybe five, ten seconds longer, before he cracks his eyes open and throws his blanket halfway off, making this face like Jonghyun is being impossible. “I mean…who’s the hyung here, who’s supposed to listen to who?”

Jonghyun never even said anything, but fair enough.

“Thank you.” It’d be so easy to say it to the ceiling, but he makes sure to catch Jinki’s eye. He can see him perfectly in the dark. “Thank you for helping me. Thank you for not getting mad.”

“Why would I get mad at you?”

“It wasn’t just me and Taeminnie.” And now his throat is closing up. Great. “I almost ruined your life. Kibummie and Minho’s, too. If it hadn’t been for you…” They wouldn’t be here right now. Shinee would be done for, they’d all be done for, and Taemin…Taemin. “Don’t try and tell me it wasn’t my fault. A lot of it was, hyung.”

They were his photos. She was his problem. And maybe he didn’t take the one of him and Taemin, but he knew better. And in the end he caught Taemin’s hand in time, but they didn’t know the ending. They thought their lives were over. They all spent a night in hell, thanks to him. Even if he were going through worse right now, he’d have no right to complain.

Jinki’s been watching his face, and his voice is so gentle as he says, “The way I see it…Shinee is five people. If they do well, then Shinee does well. Otherwise there’s no point.” Jinki sighs. Smiles. “It’s my job to make sure you guys are okay, Jonghyun-ah. I can’t always help you with everything, most of the time I can’t do anything for you. But that just means I should try harder, right? Doing my best not to hurt you is a start.”

“You should think of yourself first, hyung,” Jonghyun tells him. Someone has to, at some point. “You’re only the leader because you’re old, you don’t have to take it that seriously.”

Jinki screws his face up like he’s thinking about this one really hard, but the most he has for Jonghyun in the end is, “I mean, I guess?”

He’s so frustrating. Jonghyun doesn’t know who’s worse, him or Taemin. But then he remembers the single text from Taemin that’s gotten him through the last six or seven hours, _home,_ and all of the sudden it’s ten times easier to swallow everything and prompt Jinki, “You guess?”

Jinki’s smile twists, then slowly, slowly fades.

“There’s not much to think about. There’s not much I want.” Jonghyun’s the opposite, his problem is he always wants too much. When Jinki goes on he sounds off, like he’s pushing himself to get it out there. “I don’t know what I’d do without you guys. I don’t know what I’d do with myself.”

Jonghyun gets that, so much it hurts. And for the first time in all the time he’s known him, he feels like he gets Jinki.

“You want to know something strange?” he finds himself saying. But talking can’t hurt any more than silence has, and it’s only Jinki. “I should be so relieved Manager Hyung destroyed those pictures of us. And I am, when I think of you guys. But then I look at Taeminnie…and I don’t know.” And now it’s all coming out. “It’s been less than two months, we only got as far as telling you guys. And now he’s at home, and I only get to see him at work, and if we told his parents right now it’d kill them, I know that. But I’m going crazy. I’m getting so close to hating them.”

“Give it time.” Jonghyun would give anything to make himself listen to him, but he’s never known _how._ “I don’t just mean now, I mean later, when this whole thing has passed. They like you. They might not understand at first, but they’ll come around. And your mom should be easier.”

Maybe he’s not right, but he’s not wrong, either.

Only time will tell.

“I feel like it’s been forever. I feel like we haven’t talked since it happened.”

Taemin always says he doesn’t need to, but Jonghyun does. So fucking badly he could cry.

“It’s hard to date in secret,” Jinki says out of nowhere. Like that’s all this is, like it’s that simple…Is it? All of the sudden Jonghyun’s hanging onto Jinki’s every word for dear life. “At first I thought it would be sexy, but it’s depressing. There’s so much you can’t do for them that any other guy could.” And now Jonghyun hates him. He hates him so much, and there’s nothing Jinki can do to fix it, even if he tells Jonghyun, “Taeminnie’s different, though. He should understand you better than anyone, he’s in the same situation. He probably feels the same way.”

“Is that supposed to be helpful, hyung? That’s worse. I don’t want to make him feel like this. I don’t want him to understand me, if that’s how it is.”

It’s out of his mouth before he can stop himself, but what can he do? Just making it through tonight is killing him. He doesn’t know how he’s lasted two weeks, just that he can't go on like this much longer. Hating himself, missing Taemin, missing Taemin, hating himself, rinse, wash, repeat. It’s gotten so bad that seeing Taemin, taking what little he can get, waiting for the next time, it all just makes him lonelier.

Jonghyun is so lonely.

“That’s not something you can help,” Jinki tells him, no mercy. “Taeminnie loves you. Do you think he could be happy when you’re not?” Something in Jonghyun’s face makes him sigh, and when he talks again, it’s to the ceiling, cautious, gentle. “I’m not saying that because I don’t understand, Jonghyun-ah. Believe me, I do.”

Jonghyun believes him. He doesn’t really have a choice. Jinki’s never lied to him.

Instead of falling silent, letting Jinki fall asleep, Jonghyun says, “Do you think he’s mad at me?”

“He’s mad at everyone. Us, his parents, the world. Himself too, probably,” Jinki replies, so easily. “It’s not easy, coming back from something like that.”

_He almost died, Jonghyunnie._

Jinki didn’t even mean it like that, he would never, but it hits Jonghyun like a force of nature, takes his breath away, breaks his heart and his brain and his back.

“I just want him to be okay. I need to know he’s okay.”

_He should hate me._

“Just stick with him until he is. Taeminnie needs you.” Jinki flops over, nestling in again, and for the longest time Jonghyun thinks that’s it, fade to black. He lies there and listens for Jinki’s snores, waiting and waiting, clock ticking and ticking, earth turning, trying so hard not to think. And then finally, suddenly, when he’s given in and closed his eyes, “Jonghyun-ah…I won't ask if you’re okay, because I know you’re not. I know you. Don’t make things worse for yourself than they have to be. Don’t go there.”

Jonghyun goes back to his phone instead.

_taeminnie~_

_jinki took ur bed_

_sorry hyung couldnt protect it_

_said manager hyungs snoring_

_but hes snoring now_

_cant sleep_

_maybe ill go home with u tmrw_

_ur mom likes me. im her favorite_

_what did u eat for dinner? nvmnd dont answer. getting hungry. cant eat now. too late_

_bring us kimchi~~_

_kibummie keeps cooking. kimchi stew. kimchi fried rice. kimchi pancake._

_says its healthy but thats all he knows how to make_

_minho followed me to the gym_

_he doesnt need abs w/ his face. how is that fair_

And when his chest clears out and his breathing evens…

_i miss u_

He types it three times, deletes it four. He has to do better.

_i love u_

 

Next time Jonghyun kills the planet and drives to SM separately, just so he can take Taemin home himself. He should’ve done it from the beginning. Taemin doesn’t say no. He doesn’t say much else, either, but he doesn’t say no.

But when practice ends and they get out to the car, the last thing on Taemin’s mind is going home. He’s so obvious about it, staring and staring and staring at Jonghyun. Waiting and waiting and waiting, look on his face like he’s dying to get his way, hands twisting in his lap like he knows he won’t.

Jonghyun leans over and puts Taemin’s seatbelt on, and plants a kiss on his cheek. Taemin turns towards him, but Jonghyun’s quicker, pulling away. He gives Taemin a smile when he whines, “Hyung~.” Starts the car instead of giving in to him, going back for more. He doesn’t try lying to himself that he’s relieved, and he doesn’t let himself tell Taemin that he wishes he’d fallen for it, he wishes he had Taemin’s tongue in his mouth, his hands up his shirt, Taemin’s skin on his.

But there’s sunlight on Taemin’s face, in his hair, slanting in through the windows. It’s getting dark later and later now that spring is coming. Right here, right now, anyone could see.

Taemin doesn’t care. He goes for it again, narrowed eyes, minty breath on his lips, making Jonghyun take his face in his hands, hold him where he is. Taemin doesn’t like that. He wants this so badly, and Jonghyun would give anything to let him take it. Take him.

“Not here,” he says, as gently as he can.

Taemin huffs, slouching back in his seat. “Then where?”

He’s such a brat. It’s too much work to keep the smile off his face, so Jonghyun hides it instead.

“Be good, Taeminnie. When you move back into the dorm we—”

“So never.”

Jonghyun doesn’t know how he’s supposed to take that. He bites his tongue, pulls out into the street, and then he has something to do with his hands, somewhere to put his eyes besides Taemin, and he thinks maybe he can handle this much.

“You don’t want to leave home?” he says in the stupidest voice he can muster. That gets him nowhere, so he tries harder. “Your mom must be spoiling you, are you getting fat~?”

Taemin doesn’t say _pull over somewhere and see for yourself_ or _you could spoil me instead, you said you would cook for me,_ or anything like that, just sighs and stares out the window, arms crossed over his chest, foot going. Jonghyun hits a red light and takes his chance, reaching over to pinch Taemin’s stomach. Taemin slaps his hand away before he can find skin, mouth tightening.

“Stop it.”

“Stop what?”

Taemin eyes snap to his face, narrow and angry.

“I don’t need you to pretend everything’s okay. Everything _is_ okay.” He turns his whole body away from Jonghyun, giving him as little of his face as he can. Jonghyun’s so busy trying to figure out how to tell him that it’s okay if it’s not, that he almost misses it when Taemin mutters, “If you’d just ask me, you’d know that.”

Jonghyun gives him a minute alone with Seoul.

Then, so carefully, “Are you sleeping okay?”

“Mm,” Taemin grunts.

“No bad dreams?”

“No.”

“Are you eating?” Taemin forgets he’s ignoring Jonghyun to throw him a look, face like he’s about to snap at him again. Jonghyun has to head him off, explain, apologize, insist, just _something._ “I only get you for lunch.”

Somehow that gets Taemin to bite back his annoyance, take a deep breath. And another, and another, until he can say normally, “What about you?”

“Me?”

Half a minute back he would have given anything to have Taemin’s eyes on him, get him to talk, but now all of the sudden it’s about him, and Jonghyun has nowhere to hide. He wishes Taemin had yelled at him, he wishes he weren’t looking at him like this, reading his face. There’s nothing Jonghyun wants him to see.

Jonghyun concentrates on the road.

“You probably have it worse right now,” Taemin says finally. “You’re blaming yourself, right? Don’t lie to me, hyung. I know you.”

“I know you too. You won’t blame me, no matter what. Someone has to.” Saying it out loud doesn’t help any, it makes it worse. It makes Jonghyun feel like shit. And now he has to go there, or he’ll hate himself forever. “Taemin-ah…if it hadn’t been for me, that never would have happened to you.”

Taemin hates him for it. “Don’t say you’re sorry.”

“Taeminnie—”

“And don’t act like I’m stupid.” Voice rising, out of nowhere Taemin accuses him, “You think I can’t take care of myself. You think I’m just a stupid kid,” blindsiding Jonghyun, knocking the wind out of him.

“It’s not like that, Taeminnie,” is all he knows to say.

Taemin’s eyes flash and his mouth twists and for the longest time he shuts up, stock still, deadly silent, and Jonghyun doesn’t even know what’s wrong and _he needs to know,_ and Taemin won’t tell him.

At last Taemin says, “Then why did you send me to the store?”

“What?”

“She didn’t get to me because we were dating. She got to me because you sent me to the store instead of telling me what was going on, because you didn’t think I needed to know about _shit that effects me too,_ because you thought I couldn’t handle it, because you think I’m a fucking baby.” Taemin runs out of breath before he runs out of ways to hurt Jonghyun, ripping his insides to shreds, glaring and glaring. “I don’t need you to protect me, hyung. I can protect myself just fine, if you’d ever let me.”

Jonghyun has to make this right. He doesn’t know if he can. There’s no time, maybe five, ten minutes in this traffic.

“I’m sorry,” he begins.

“Don’t say you’re fucking sorry!” Taemin shouts. “You always say I don’t tell you anything, but you’re the one who never listens to me.”

“I know I’m selfish, I was selfish. I did nothing good. I let you down. I put you in danger. And I know you don’t want to hear it, but I’m sorry. You don’t know how fucking sorry I am.” Jonghyun squeezes the wheel until his knuckles turn white. If it’s honesty Taemin wants, if that’ll make it better, Jonghyun will turn himself inside out. “I was going to tell you after I talked to Manager Hyung. I thought maybe there was a way to fix it before it got to you.”

It’s the truth but it tastes like excuses, and maybe it’ll sound like lies to Taemin.

“That wasn’t up to you,” Taemin says sharply.

“I wasn’t thinking, I was just, I was out of my mind, I couldn’t put you through that. And then I put you through worse. I sent you to that person, alone.”

Silence.

“It’s okay if you hate me, Taeminnie. I understand. I hate myself more, believe me.” Taemin doesn’t have an answer for him. He doesn’t want to talk about it, and if Jonghyun makes him he’ll only hurt Taemin more, so why can’t Jonghyun _stop._ “It’s okay if you don’t want to talk to me anymore.”

“Okay.” 

Taemin goes back to the world outside his window, and shuts him out. Jonghyun has the rest of the ride to live with that. He has a thousand conversations with Taemin in his head, but everything he can think to say, he’d only be saying for himself, so he bites his tongue, tastes blood. All he gets back is silence, closing his throat, sitting in his stomach, squeezing his heart.

It’s still too soon when he pulls up in front of Taemin’s parents’ building. This feeling won’t leave him once Taemin does, and he doesn’t want to be alone with it.

Somehow he gets himself to say, “See you in the morning. Sleep tight,” and then he lets himself touch Taemin, petting his hair, pinching his cheek, hoping for a smile and getting a look instead. “If you can’t, text me. I’ll be up for a while.”

“You mean all night,” Taemin says shortly, getting his seatbelt, going for his door. “Just worry about yourself, hyung.”

“You aren’t going to say good night?” One look at Taemin’s face and he can’t take it, has to put his head down, wait it out, grinding his forehead into the steering wheel, holding on for dear life. “Don’t be mad. It’s not, I’m not okay. Please don’t be mad. Please don’t hate me.”

“I never said anything about hating you,” Taemin snaps. And then, more softly, “I didn’t say that stuff to hurt you, I didn’t mean to. I’m sorry.” Taemin’s hand lands on his head, clumsy, gentle. He tries stroking Jonghyun’s hair, so tenderly Jonghyun’s eyes well up and everything hurts a little more. “I just, I really need you to listen to me, okay? I can’t take much more of this. My parents, the other hyungs, you, you’re all making me so crazy. I can’t breathe because of you.”

“You think this is easy for me?” It comes out like a sob. “I’m going crazy without you, baby. I miss you all the time, I miss you right now.” Jonghyun gets his head up. He doesn’t care anymore if Taemin sees him like this, he doesn’t care if he looks like a loser, just that Taemin looks beautiful, and he’s here with him. Jonghyun looks and looks. Stores every little detail for later. “I need you.”

Taemin takes Jonghyun’s face in his hands, thumbs pressing into the corners of his eyes. It’s so easy to lean into his touch, warm and soft, so hard to keep himself from asking for more.

“Think about what I said, hyung. Promise me.”

Jonghyun presses a kiss into Taemin’s palm and takes his hand in both of his, pulling it into his lap and hanging on.

“Taemin-ah…it’s not that I don’t understand you. I just don’t know if I can change how I see you. I don’t want to. The person you are to me, the person I try to be for you, the way I feel about you, I don’t want to let any of that go.” Once it’s out there it’s torture, waiting for Taemin’s reply, five seconds, ten seconds, until Jonghyun can’t take it anymore. “Can’t you understand me?”

Taemin’s come so far on his own, and he’s gone through so much where no one could see, but he never thinks of himself. He doesn’t know what he needs. Jonghyun does. He’s always been right here, he’s going to stay right here, no matter what. He wants Taemin to see him as a man, but from the beginning, Jonghyun’s seen himself as hyung.

“I’m not asking you to change everything, just how you talk to me, just a little,” Taemin says. “Tell me stuff. Ask me for things, let me do things for you too. Don’t keep shit from me. Trust me.”

Jonghyun wants to tell Taemin he does, more than anyone. He wants to tell him this is him trusting Taemin right now. He wants to tell him he loves him.

Instead he says, “I’ll try. I’ll think,” and means it with all his heart. He takes a deep shaky breath, blinks away his tears, keeps his eyes on Taemin’s face instead of the world over his shoulder. Tries smiling. “Do you still love me?”

Taemin doesn’t take that too well, either.

“Don’t ask me stuff like that. You don’t need to.”

He leans in and kisses Jonghyun hard on the mouth. Teeth sinking into Jonghyun’s bottom lip, tongue fucking into his mouth, sun still in the sky, real life pressing in on all sides, and Jonghyun gives back as good as he gets. Pulls Taemin’s hair, pulls him close, drags him half out of his seat, hands everywhere, rough and demanding, desperate. At the last second he comes up for air, and takes Taemin’s bottom lip with him, between his teeth, pressed to his tongue, hot and wet. Taemin groans into his mouth. Slides his hand down Jonghyun’s chest, fingers tripping over his belt buckle, and finds Jonghyun hard.

Jonghyun feels his smile before he sees it. He locks eyes with Taemin, holding him by his hair, catching his hand before he can take it away, pressing it to his dick. Fucks into Taemin’s touch, grinding into his palm, so small and soft, hot through to Jonghyun’s skin. Taemin’s breathing hitches, his eyes darken, and he strains forward, testing Jonghyun’s grip, mashing his lips against Jonghyun’s, messy and open-mouthed, teeth and tongue, eating all the sounds Jonghyun lets out. Jonghyun wants to fuck him so badly he can taste it. He wants to take Taemin away from all this, love him and kiss him and fuck him until the bad things burn away, come all over him, over Taemin’s hand, in his mouth, on his face, inside him—

Taemin bites him, hard. Jonghyun short-circuits, sparks flying, pleasure-pain, and then of all things Taemin lifts away. One last kiss, nudge of his nose, half-smile, and he’s out of reach, out the door, and Jonghyun doesn’t get it, or him, and he’s going to kill Taemin if he doesn’t get back here.

That’s it?!

Or not. Taemin ducks in again just to say, tight and rushed, “I love you.”

His door slams and he’s gone. Jonghyun doesn’t do anything about anything. Just watches Taemin until he’s out of sight, then turns his signal on and watches cars instead.

 

“How’s Taeminnie doing? I barely see him.”

“I don’t know. He says he’s okay.”

Manager Hyung glances at Jonghyun. “Are you?”

“If he is,” Jonghyun says, but that’s not right. He hates how that sounds. If. “I will be.”

Manager Hyung’s smile says he sees right through him. He probably does. Jonghyun has nowhere to hide anyway. Manager Hyung says he brought him along to pick up lunch because he only has two hands, but Jonghyun knows him better than that. If he didn’t plan on talking he would have brought Jinki along. Instead he’s got Jonghyun trapped in traffic, sunlight streaming in through the windshield, buried under two boxes of chicken.

He’s probably better off here, anyway. He’s spent the whole morning with his palms itching and his eyes falling out of his head, watching Taemin while Jinki watched him, and Minho and Kibum talked all their ears off. Manager Hyung has to watch the road. Jonghyun can deal with him.

Maybe not, because Manager Hyung skips the part where he pretends to believe him and leaves him be, and says instead, “Jonghyunnie…don’t beat yourself up. If you do, then I have to, too, and I’m so tired of that.”

Jonghyun doesn’t get that. He doesn’t try very hard. “Is the company giving you shit?”

Manager Hyung sighs. They hit a red light, and he levels Jonghyun with a look, the kind that makes Jonghyun’s throat close up, steals his words. Jonghyun has one second where he knows whatever comes out of Manager Hyung’s mouth, it’s going to be bad, and then it’s so much worse.

“Seo Bom-ssi kidnapped Taeminnie. The end. You can try to understand her, you can think about the stuff you could’ve done to stop her, but there’s no point.”

They’re talking about it.

“There’s no going back, either,” Jonghyun says, as soon as he gets his voice back. “Not for her, or for Taeminnie.”

“Or you.”

Last Jonghyun saw her, the police were taking her away. She didn’t fight them then, and she has no way to fight them now. She’ll end up in prison, her life is over. Theirs aren’t. The cut on Jonghyun’s chin is gone. Minho’s foot has long since healed. It took a week for the lump on Taemin’s head to disappear, but now it’s like it was never there, and he can’t even remember how he got it, if she hit him after she Tasered him, or the counter did. March is here and the days are getting longer and longer, the sun warmer and warmer. Spring is coming.

No matter how fast their world turns, though, how busy they are now, how much busier they’ll get a few weeks from now, these are all things that happened to them, and there’s no getting away from that. There’s no running away. It’s all they can do to keep up. Jonghyun just doesn’t want to get left behind. He doesn’t want Taemin to get left behind.

That doesn’t explain why he’s sitting here with his sweat drying, breathing in grease and salt, fucking “This Time is Over” on the radio, and there are tears in his eyes, and he’s this close to breaking down again.

He wants Manager Hyung to tell him it’s okay. All he can say for himself is, “I should have told you we were dating. I was so stupid, I wasn’t careful at all, and it was Taeminnie.”

Manager Hyung pats his shoulder, awkward, clumsy. It takes him the longest time just to say, “I should have asked sooner.”

There’s nothing Jonghyun can say to that. Manager Hyung takes one look at him and turns his blinker on. It takes him a minute or two to get across three lanes of traffic, and by then Jonghyun’s sure he won’t cry. Manager Hyung doesn’t want to hear it, though, and as soon as he cuts the engine he goes for something in his pocket. Jonghyun thinks he knows where this is going, “I don’t care anymore, hyung, I don’t wanna see it,” but then she catches his eye.

Poked full of holes, scribbled on, him and…Shin Sekyung?

He only remembers the night this photo was taken _because_ it was taken. Thanks to Dispatch, he’ll never be able to forget.

“Did you get this from SM?” he says, at a loss. “They hang onto this shit that long?”

_Dispatch says he’s dating. As long as he doesn’t bring her to the store, I’m fine. As long as I don’t have to see him with her. I keep looking at the pictures, though. Why do I do this to myself?_

Good question.

“A friend dug it up for me. You guys get so much mail, things slip through the cracks sometimes. It doesn’t matter.” Manager Hyung gives him another minute, then asks, “Aren’t you going to ask me how long I’ve hung onto it?”

Jonghyun thinks long and hard about taking a page out of Manager Hyung and ripping it up, throwing it into the wind, into the gutter. But littering isn’t cool, the trash cans outside SM will have to do. And for now, his pocket.

“It doesn’t matter.”

Giving his own words back to him doesn’t shut Manager Hyung up.

“Back in January, after the whole thing with Kim Jihye…I checked with your other exes, the ones I knew about anyway, but nothing came up. And then I thought of your scandal with Sekyung-ssi, and, well. It was Seo Bom-ssi’s first, I think.” A second ago it was staring them both in the face. “That was last month. But you were doing so well, and I thought if you weren’t dating… “ It takes so much out of him to meet Jonghyun’s eyes. “I told myself you didn’t need to hear it, but really, I just didn’t want to say anything. I didn’t want to make you think about it.”

Then why is he making Jonghyun talk about it now?

“I was careless, hyung,” he says again. It’s easier the second time, even though he was careless just yesterday, and he’d do it again. “I was selfish. If it hadn’t been her, it would’ve been Dispatch.”

“You can negotiate with them,” Manager Hyung insists, like he’s trying to argue with Jonghyun or something. “You can’t negotiate with psychos.”

“Neither of us did anything good. Okay? Happy?” And again, he only has what Manager Hyung told him. “Nobody did anything bad but her.”

“Problems don’t just disappear if you look the other way,” Manager Hyung tells him now. When he sighs it’s so heavy it weighs Jonghyun down too. Someone needs to remind him he’s thirty-one, he’s not allowed to sound that old. “I hate my job, Jonghyunnie, and I’m shit at it. The only reason I’m still here is because of you guys, but you’d be better off with someone who knows what they’re doing. Believes in it.” He scrubs his hands over his face. “Nobody else would’ve let things get to this point.”

Jonghyun takes forever to think of the right answer. The chicken’s gotten cold and it’s getting colder. Cars hurtle by like comets, but they’re only going twenty, twenty-five. Thirty if they’re lucky, which they’re not. Traffic’s backed up as far as Jonghyun’s eyes can see.

Finally he gives up, and sticks with what he knows. “Nobody else would let us live our lives, either.”

“That’s not true. As you got to know them, they’d get to know you too. These things take time.” Of all things he smiles. “You took a lot of time to get used to me. I thought you hated me for years.”

Jonghyun’s never hated him. Maybe he didn’t like Manager Hyung in the beginning, maybe he’s never trusted him as much as he should, but hating him? He’d need a reason first. Manager Hyung would’ve had to give him one.

“Well, I don’t want to get used to anybody else. I don’t want explain myself to them, or explain Taeminnie. I just got done explaining it to you.”

“Jonghyunnie…”

Manager Hyung looks so guilty, and if he starts apologizing right now Jonghyun might blow up.

“If you quit, I will too,” Jonghyun says before that can happen. “You signed your new contract already. SM can’t fire you over this, what did they do right? They sat on those photos for months.” If Manager Hyung doesn’t change his mind, Jonghyun really will hate him. He doesn’t care anymore. “You’re all we’ve got, Joomin hyung.”

There’s nothing Manager Hyung can say to that. Nothing he can get out, at least, head in his hands, shoulders so tight Jonghyun’s not sure he’s doing the right thing when he reaches for him. Manager Hyung stiffens, then slowly, slowly relaxes, slumping back in his seat. But then he nods. He’s nodding.

“Taeminnie will be fine, he’s a lot stronger than he looks. He just needs time,” Manager Hyung says finally. “Honestly, I’m more worried about you.”

Maybe Manager Hyung should worry about himself for once. But Manager Hyung didn’t say anything about him earlier, so Jonghyun gives him a pass, doesn’t mention how red his eyes are, how scratchy his voice sounds. Makes fun of himself instead.

“I’m not as strong as I look, is that it? How is that fair, hyung? I mean, look at me.” Jonghyun flexes as best he can in three layers, and Manager Hyung rewards him with a smile. “And anyway, the strongest people I’ve met are all women. If you judge by appearances, you’re the one who’ll look stupid in the end.”

“If something seems one way on the outside, it could be another on the inside,” Manager Hyung agrees. And then he turns everything around on Jonghyun. “If either of you wants to sit out this comeback…”

Jonghyun doesn’t know what he wants to hear.

_If I don’t get up now, I never will. Taeminnie’s the same. He’s trying so hard right now to get back to where we were, I can’t let him down. The others, either. Our fans. You. That’d be the same as letting myself down._

_Just help me up._

He doesn’t know what that’d do to him, though, saying any of that out loud. So instead he blusters, “You know how much work we’ve put into this, you know how much we’ve suffered? We can’t let the other three take all the credit. Or the money. I don’t know how much we’ll get out of the album, who knows if it’ll sell, even.”

On and on and on, until Manager Hyung cracks a smile. But he has to force himself to laugh, so Jonghyun does too, like crazy. Somewhere in the middle of Manager Hyung going in for a hug, Jonghyun cringing away in fear of something equally crazy, a headlock maybe, the chicken sliding off his lap, the love of Jinki’s life lying in pieces on the dirty floor…he loses it for real.

This is real.

He laughs for days and days and days, but it’s only been a minute when Manager Hyung starts the car.

 

“You ready to go, Taeminnie?”

The others left for the dorm an hour ago already, and now the sun’s gone down. Jonghyun wishes he and Taemin were with them right now, instead of here in the practice room, end of the day staring them in the face.

“I’m gonna stay here and work on this some more. You go ahead, hyung.” Taemin’s voice is twisted up tight, but then he catches the look on Jonghyun’s face and gives him a smile, a real one, small and tired but there. “Really. I’m fine.”

Jonghyun’s not, now that he has to let go again. He doesn’t let himself ask Taemin how he’s going to get home without him, doesn’t remind him his parents are probably getting anxious waiting up for him, because Taemin might hate him if he did.

If Taemin wants to be alone…

“You sure?” And then he can’t help himself. “You aren’t hungry?”

A week or two ago Jonghyun would have said, _hyung will buy you tteokbokki~,_ but Taemin doesn’t want to hear it, that’s all useless now. Jonghyun is useless.

Taemin goes to start the music again, and all of the sudden Jonghyun hates “Sherlock” with every fiber of his being. He catches Taemin’s arm, pulling him back to his side. Before Taemin can decide if he’s looking or not, Jonghyun takes his face in his hands, brings his chin up.

“Good night kiss.”

Almost before he gets the words out, Taemin leans in to peck him on the lips, eyes squeezed shut, hands balled into fists at his side like a reminder, No Touching. Jonghyun wants to stick his tongue in Taemin’s mouth pretty badly, mess him up, make his body talk. Instead he brings Taemin in for a hug and lets him hide all he wants, squeeze Jonghyun tight, bury his face in his neck.

Eventually Taemin says in his ear, “Don’t try texting me tonight, okay? Try to sleep,” and when he pulls away to look at Jonghyun again he’s got his smile back, brittle, too-bright. And he’s trying so hard to sound normal when he goes on, “I lost my phone, anyway.”

And then it’s just Jonghyun and the moon, and it’s cold and dark and lonely. Jonghyun should have been smarter, like Taemin. He should have forgotten his coat up there. He should have left his keys in his car. Maybe he should just lose his mind wherever Taemin lost his phone, go back in there, dance until his body gives out, make Taemin take responsibility for him. Cry and beg and yell, let everything out.

The next best thing is the convenience store down the block from SM.

 

As soon as he steps inside his chest tightens. His stomach turns. His skin crawls.

It’d take more than that to stop him. This is nothing. He knows exactly what he’s looking for, he doesn’t even have to think. He’s been here before, so many times, seven years of Taemin. Every single flavor of milk, pop, Pringles, kkokal corn, chocopies, enough triangle kimbap for ten people, tuna mayo and tuna kimchi. He’s halfway to checkout before he thinks twice, goes back for spicy chicken too.

The clerk is waiting right where he left her.

She takes a million years to check him out. His heart’s going a million miles an hour. He doesn’t know if she’s recognized him or not because he can’t look her in the face. He knows she’s looking. He can feel her eyes.

He’s almost out when she says it. “Um. Jonghyun oppa?”

The bags seem to weigh a thousand pounds, his legs a thousand more. He doesn’t sink into the floor, though, and when he turns she has a pen and a little notebook ready for him, and more apologies than he can take.

He drops everything and signs.

 

The night is warmer on the way back, the music louder when he slips into the practice room. Taemin takes forever to notice him, he’s dancing so hard. Jonghyun just watches him and waits for the song to end, for Taemin to return to planet earth. And then he just watches. Taemin is so beautiful.

“What are you doing here?”

Oh.

“Hyung was hungry,” Jonghyun tells him, remembering the bags in his hands. “I hate eating alone, you know that. You’re stuck with me.”

Taemin’s looking at him like he’s crazy, but if Jonghyun is it’s Taemin’s fault. Sweaty and stinky and tired, hands on his hips, catching his breath, he’s the most beautiful thing Jonghyun’s ever seen. Jonghyun has this crazy urge to take him into his arms, but instead he dumps his loot onto the floor and sinks to his knees, sorting through everything, spreading it out. All Taemin’s favorites, staring up at him. Jonghyun doesn’t even mind that Taemin only has eyes for the food.

“You got too much.”

“You don’t get fat, but I do. Take responsibility for me, Taemin-ah~”

Jonghyun reaches for his hand, pulls him down. Taemin doesn’t fight him, just sits on his butt and grabs the nearest kimbap. Stuffs his face.

Through a mouthful of rice Taemin gets out, “I thought you went home.”

Jonghyun isn’t in trouble. That’s all it takes, and his heart squeezing up his throat, so he goes for the milk, buys himself a little bit of time to find his voice again.

“Banana?” Taemin doesn’t answer, just keeps his head down. Keeps eating. “Strawberry? Chocolate? Plain?” None of them. Nothing. Hunched over, bangs in his eyes, chewing and chewing and chewing instead of breathing. Jonghyun can’t get a good look at his face. Taemin won’t let him. “Taeminnie?”

Taemin goes in blind for more kimbap. Jonghyun reaches for him instead, taking his hand. Taemin jerks away, his shoulders tighten, he stiffens, sniffs, gasps. Sobs. And then he bursts into tears, and it’s everything at once. “You’re so stupid, hyung,” and, “I thought you left,” and, “What took you so long.” When Jonghyun pulls him in Taemin fights him all the way, turning away, twisting in his grip, hitting him, hating him. Then holds him so tight Jonghyun’s ribs might crack, fingers clenching in his shirt, digging into his flesh, crying his heart out on Jonghyun’s shoulder. “What took you so long. I thought you weren’t coming, I thought I was dead. _What took you so long?”_

“Hyung is sorry. It’s okay, Taemin-ah. Everything’s okay now. I’ve got you. Hyung is sorry.”

Taemin’s arms weaken and the fight goes out of him long before he runs out of tears. All Jonghyun can do for him is lay with him, give Taemin his arm for a pillow, hold him close and try to keep him safe from the bad things. It’s the most he ever could, whenever Taemin was homesick, hating his life, too nervous to sleep, and it was too much for Taemin to keep everything inside. Just holding him.

A long time passes.

Taemin’s breathing evens.

His tears dry.

He lifts his head.

Eyes and nose red, cheeks shiny, still so pretty Jonghyun’s heart stops…Taemin smiles at him.

And finally says, “I heard you before I ever saw you, did you know that?” Jonghyun does now. Something in his eyes makes Taemin shy, snuggling closer, hiding in Jonghyun’s chest. “It was my first day. You were singing ‘Incomplete.’ You were already really good, I wanted to sound like you so badly.”

Jonghyun wants to make Taemin laugh.

“I definitely saw you first.” Taemin turns his face into Jonghyun’s arm and bites it. “No, honestly. I saw you dancing and asked how old you were. When they told me I wanted to give up on life.”

“Did you hate me?”

“Mm.”

Taemin forgets he’s not looking, making a face, reaching up to pinch Jonghyun’s cheek. He ends up tangling his fingers in Jonghyun’s hair, smiling at him.

“I liked you.”

Jonghyun’s heart does this weird thing, beating like wings in his chest. Three, two, one, take off. All he can do is gather Taemin up, and wait for it to go away. And hope it never does.

“Taeminnie…” He doesn’t know where he’s going, just that Taemin’s here with him. He wants to hear his voice. “Was it what you thought it would be? This life, I mean.” And suddenly he wants to know, so badly. “Does it feel like a dream to you?”

“It’s a job, hyung,” Taemin tells him, like that much is obvious. He’s not wrong, either, when he goes on, “We worked really hard to get what we have, and we have to work really hard to keep it. People don’t see that part.” And, “It wasn’t all bad back then, and it’s not all good now.” But that’s the easy part, and there’s more. Jonghyun can read that much in the furrow of Taemin’s brow, the look in his eyes, his fingers pressing into the corner of Jonghyun’s eye, corner of his mouth, tip of his nose, playing with him, making him ugly. “But sometimes…”

Taemin can make him as ugly as he likes, as long as he doesn’t look away. Jonghyun leans into his touch. Traces Taemin’s spine. “Sometimes?”

Taemin’s features tighten, then give, just a little, and for a moment he can’t speak.

Finally he says with difficulty, “I don’t know. I feel like God put me here with you,” voice so small and stuffed up. “Jonghyun hyung.” Jonghyun catches his tears before they fall, pinches his cheek, gives Taemin the stupidest smile he can, until Taemin can’t help it. He smiles back. “Thank you for liking me. Thank you for saving my life.”

Jonghyun holds him.

“What about you, hyung?”

“What about me?”

Taemin squeezes him tight. “Your dreams.”

Jonghyun doesn’t have to think about it. The problem’s always been meaning it, believing in it, saying it for someone else to hear. But Taemin wouldn’t make him use words if he didn’t want to understand Jonghyun, and he wouldn’t be asking Jonghyun to let him in if he didn’t want to stay right here.

Jonghyun shifts a little closer, and a little closer, until Taemin’s a breath away.

“If I could record my own stuff,” but that’s as far as he gets before he’s stuck. “If SM would release it...”

“You want to go solo?”

“It’s more than that. It’s this life. _My_ life. I don’t want to do what SM wants for once, I want to do what I want. I’m so sick of lying.” Jonghyun takes a deep breath. “I wouldn’t care if they made me do all the same shit, dance and go on TV, I just want to do it as myself. Not Shinee, but Kim Jonghyun. If that’s enough for me, then it’s enough.” And now he’s thinking out loud. “I can’t make our fans understand me, all I can do is try to reach them. And if they hate my music…I’ll just like it more.”

There. It’s out there. He said it. Taemin frowns, nods, like it makes sense, he gets it, and that’s it. And all of the sudden Jonghyun wants to tell him everything that’s ever crossed his mind, turn himself upside down and let Taemin pick through every little piece of him, his opinions, his hopes, his fantasies, his feelings.

Taemin gives Jonghyun some time, stroking his hair back from his face, playing with it. It’s not a reply, not quite, when he tells him, “I never thought about debuting as a group until it happened. I always wanted to be like Rain sunbaenim, doing everything myself.”

Taemin laughs at himself first, makes it so easy for Jonghyun to tease him, “Aigoo. You’re too good for the rest of us?” and Taemin’s so cute, half-smiling, half-smirking, that Jonghyun has to stop himself from taking it too far. He doesn’t want to make Taemin into a joke. “You’ll go far, Taeminnie. It’s just taking SM a while to catch up. I saw it in you from the beginning. The beginning, beginning.”

“I’m your fan, too.” Taemin’s ears go red, but he holds Jonghyun’s eyes. “I’ve never looked at anyone but you.”

Jonghyun’s feelings blow up, too big and too bright for his body to hold them, bigger and brighter the longer he looks at Taemin, lying in his arms, staring into Jonghyun’s face like he’s the only other person in the world, so warm and soft and all his. Jonghyun looks and looks. Ducks in, presses his lips to Taemin’s, sweet and lingering. Which reminds him.

“I wasn’t even your first kiss,” he says, lifting away, narrowing his eyes. “There was someone else.”

Taemin goes still. He’s not in trouble or anything, Jonghyun’s just playing with him a little, but Taemin comes back at him with, “If you ask about my past I get to ask about yours.”

Jonghyun goes a little crazy inside. Right away he has to stop himself from saying, _What past? One kiss isn’t a past,_ and then there are ten million other things on the tip of his tongue. _Who was it? Did it mean anything to you? Did you like it? You liked me. You have me. You can forget them._ He swallows them all.

Says instead, “You can ask me anything, Taeminnie. You know that, right?”

The most Taemin can give him for now is, “I know,” and it’s up to Jonghyun to make that enough. But then, out of nowhere, a minute later, “It was a girl at school, it just kinda happened. I wasn’t sure if I liked guys or just you.”

Jonghyun needs a moment just to slow himself down. His heart races ahead. 

“Did you like her?” he asks.

“It wasn’t like that,” Taemin says, so quickly his words run up against Jonghyun’s. “She had this thing. She kissed people for 1000 won, 2000 for tongue.” Taemin leaves it there for half a second, before he catches Jonghyun smirking, and beats him to it. “She offered to do me for free.”

“And you took her up on it? Taemin-ah~” Jonghyun doesn’t know what to do with him. Taemin is impossible. “That was your first kiss. You can’t get it back.”

Taemin just looks at him.

“I thought it wouldn’t be anything special anyway. I wanted to get it over with.”

It costs Taemin nothing to say it now, but still, Jonghyun’s heart hurts. He leans in and presses his lips to Taemin’s mouth, his nose, his eyes, kissing it better.

“When was this?” And before he can stop himself, “How was it?”

Too much?

“Last year,” Taemin replies, then scrunches his face up, trying to recall the details. “Wet?”

That doesn’t mean bad, and she was a professional, there’s no way she didn’t know what she was doing. There’s nothing for it. Jonghyun leans in and kisses Taemin breathless, teasing his mouth open, flirting with his tongue, stroking Taemin’s back, holding him by the nape of his neck. Kisses him and kisses him and kisses him, until Taemin sighs, leans into his touch, presses closer. When Jonghyun pulls away, Taemin tries everything he can to keep him, biting his lip, pulling his hair, hooking his leg around Jonghyun’s waist. And it takes him forever to open his eyes.

“What was her name?”

Taemin needs a minute just to get his brain working.

“Kim Wonhee.”

Huh. Jonghyun lies there and waits for it to mean something more to him, but it never does. Just that somewhere out there, there’s a girl named Wonhee who’s kissed Taemin. What she’s like, if she liked Taemin, if she’s upped her price, if she’s got someone now too…that’s her life, not his. And Taemin is here with him. 

“Taemin-ah,” he says, because suddenly this is so important. “Why me?”

When Taemin doesn’t have an answer for him right away, Jonghyun knows it’s only because he has to think of one.

“I don’t know,” Taemin says at last. “It’s always been you, for me.”

Jonghyun’s heart bursts and it breaks. He’d give anything to be able to say it back.

“I love you.” Three little words to tell Taemin how much he means to him. Jonghyun puts everything into them. Everything. “I love you.”

And again and again, leaning in for another kiss, and then another. Taemin goes pink, grows shy, tells him finally, “I know, hyung.”

Jonghyun loses track of time.

“Are you sleeping? Taeminnie?”

“Mm,” Taemin grunts. He snuggles into Jonghyun. “Are you?”

Jonghyun smiles into his hair. “Mm.”

His arm is, at least.

“When was the last time we stayed the night?”

In the practice room, Taemin means.

“Before we debuted?” It’s been so long, it’s too far back to remember. It feels like forever since he last slept with Taemin anywhere, and part of him doesn’t want to now. If he could lie here and watch Taemin all night, he wouldn’t have to wake up just to let him go. “Come home soon, okay? We could be in bed right now, I’m too old to sleep on the floor.” Taemin half sighs, half laughs, and Jonghyun wishes he could see his face. He pulls him closer instead, holds him tighter. Closes his eyes. “Our room is empty without you. I get so lonely I can’t sleep.”

“I’m here now.”

Just a little longer, just like this. Just a little longer and he’ll sleep.

Just a little longer…

_I hope no one’s looking for us, Taeminnie. Your mom’s probably going crazy right now. The others too, maybe. If they find us they might kill us in our sleep. Should I keep watch?_

_Ah, forget it. Let’s stay right here forever. Just like this. Just me and you. Don’t wake me up._

_Okay?_

_If you don’t answer I get to do whatever I want._

_…Okay?_

_Taemin-ah~_

Jonghyun dreams.

 

-

 

“What are you doing out here?”

She knows that voice. And sure enough, when she looks up, she sees him. She forgets the cigarette between her lips until his eyes widen and his face falls open.

“What is this? You smoke?!” Jonghyun says.

It’s not a secret. It’s just not a side of her he’s seen. If he’s ever seen any side of her at all. She knows him by sight, by ear, by heart, but they’ve never really talked, and whenever she looks at him, he’s never looking back. Maybe this is the first time she’s existed.

She has so many things she wants to say to him, and no right to say any of them. _You know my face. Do you know my name? I know yours. Is it okay if I call you Jonghyun oppa? Would you hate it?_

_Would you like it?_

“You don’t?”

Smoke.

_I know your everything._

He narrows his eyes at her, like he’s thinking about telling her off. She knows he won’t. But then he drops down next to her, hugging his knees, and all she can think to do is give him a cigarette, and then a light. He doesn’t say no. He doesn’t say anything, just smokes. He started around the time the rumors did. Kim Jihye. Another guy. 

Jonghyun is so beautiful. She doesn’t get it. She doesn’t get _her._ She wants to tell him that, but it wouldn’t mean anything to him, hearing it from her.

She doesn’t know she’s staring again until he catches her at it, but he meets her eyes, and she can’t look away. And then he smiles. “Evals didn’t go well, huh.”

Right now is worse. There’s no way to refuse when sunbaes buy them food, but she should have gone home after. Then she wouldn’t be here, wet pavement, neon night, no stars, music at her back, reading the noraebang’s pulse with her whole body.

But then she wouldn’t be with him, breathing his air, close enough to touch. For now, just for now, she’s not alone.

She doesn’t need to, she already knows, but it can’t hurt to ask. “What about you?”

Maybe it can. He sighs. “Second. Again.”

She was last.

Again.

Her lungs burn, but it’s just smoke.

“Oppa,” she says, so suddenly she scares herself. But now she has him waiting, she has him listening, and there’s nothing inside her he’d want to look at. There’s nothing. “I don’t think I can do this much longer. I don’t know what I’m doing.”

Jonghyun doesn’t laugh at her, but there’s no way he could understand. If her heart beats any harder it might break her ribs.

“Does anyone?” he replies, like she said something normal, like she didn’t just put every little piece of herself out there for him to see. But maybe he guesses some of that, looking her in the face. “Bom-ah,” and he says it like a question almost, searching her face to see if he got her right, “you got here somehow. Right? And you wouldn’t be here if SM didn’t think you have what it takes.”

“Someone saw me on the street and liked my face. That’s it.” She doesn’t know how to make him _see._ “I want to be more than that.”

Somehow he’s smiling at her.

“The same thing happened to me,” Jonghyun tells her. “Back in middle school I was in a band. I didn’t do it just to look cool, I played bass. The only real gig we ever got, someone from SM saw me.” He looks away to blow smoke, out into the dark. She’d give anything to see his expression, feel his eyes on her as he says, “I’m here because of my face, same as you. We’re the same.”

Are they?

She doesn’t care if Taeyeon takes first every month, Jonghyun is the best singer she’s ever heard. His voice makes her feel things. Just hearing it takes her to a better place, somewhere far away from here, outside her stupid body and her stupid head. All her own voice ever does is make her sad, make her angry, make her frustrated, make her hate herself, and she never gets _anywhere._ And she’s not pretty enough to make up for it, she’s gone wrong, acne and braces, growth spurts and weight gains. She’s not good enough at dancing, either. She’s nothing special.

They started at the same place, that’s all.

And yet, with all her heart, she wants to believe him. She doesn’t want to hate him. She doesn’t want to hold him back, drag him down to her level, she wants to catch up, walk on the clouds with him. She’s tired of looking at his back, reaching out and falling short, never touching him. She wants him to look at her. She wants him to like her. She wants him to see in her everything she sees in him.

“You’ll make it,” she says.

_I won’t._

Their eyes meet. Maybe he’ll lie to her, tell her she will, too. Maybe it won’t sound like a lie if he says it. But then someone clatters down the stairs, bursts out the door, brushing by her, and Jonghyun starts. Forgets all about her.

“Taemin-ah. Taemin-ah!”

Lee Taemin stops. Turns. Comes back, slow, reluctant. She can feel the air leaving her lungs with every step he takes towards them.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Jonghyun demands. “It’s after ten, it’s too late to go back to practice. I already called your parents and told them you’re with me.” Taemin just stares at him, silent and shy. He doesn’t even say anything, but Jonghyun climbs to his feet, tries to grind his cigarette into non-existence under his shoe. “You tired?”

Taemin hesitates, glancing at her. “No.”

If Jonghyun asked her, she would’ve said yes. She’s so tired. She would’ve said anything, if Jonghyun stroked her hair like that. But she’s not a child, not like Taemin. She can’t ask him to take care of her.

“You don’t wanna go home?” Jonghyun says, eyeing him, biting back a smile.

“I can’t make it to practice tomorrow,” Taemin says, making a face like the words taste bad. “My grandma’s coming up to visit.”

All she ever has waiting for her at home is Mikyung unnie, with her textbooks and her opinions and her pity. Taemin should be happy he has a grandma to visit him, and parents who care if he’s there or not. He should be happy he gets to have his own life.

He should have let her have hers, for just a while longer.

Jonghyun takes that in, and tells Taemin, “I haven’t been home in two days.”

“Hyung…”

Jonghyun nods at her, tells her, “Go back inside, okay? If you can’t get home on your own one of the noonas will help you,” and then leaves her behind for Taemin. Throwing an arm around Taemin’s shoulders, he says in a voice she’s never heard before, stupid on purpose, “Should we make it three~? Your mom will let me stay over. She likes me, even if you don’t~” 

Taemin frowns at him. “Your mom likes you more.”

“You were supposed to tell me you do, Taeminnie.” Jonghyun pinches his cheek. Taemin makes an unhappy noise, but he doesn’t try to escape, sticks to Jonghyun’s side. “Did you finish the song?”

Taemin’s the only one other than her who never takes a turn at noraebangs. But if he can’t sing, he has an excuse. He’s too young for vocal lessons. She’s not. She doesn’t. Jonghyun’s never noticed, though. None of them ever have. They’re fine with her silence.

She is too. She’s fine.

“I guess,” Taemin says.

“You guess?” Jonghyun presses. “You were doing just fine when I left?”

“You did all the hard parts, though?”

“I can’t leave you alone, huh. Next time I’ll stick around to listen.”

When Taemin smiles it’s like the sun breaking across his face. It’s so unfair. It takes so little to make him happy, and he gets so much from everyone. From this world. 

And Jonghyun. He gives Taemin everything. Taemin’s never even had to ask. Jonghyun’s never made him.

_I know this sounds like a scam, but honestly it’s not. See, business cards? SM Entertainment. Here. Give it to your parents. Talk it over with them. You’re very cute, you have the right look._

_You’ve always wanted to be a singer? Don’t worry. Everything else can be taught, looks can’t. Work hard and you’ll be fine._

_Hold on, just a second._

_Let me see you smile._

“I’ll do better,” Taemin promises, “Next time.”

Jonghyun smiles back. “I know you will. You always do.”

And then they’re gone.

She wishes she were, too. But when she closes her eyes, breathes deep, she goes nowhere. She’s stuck in her body. She’s stuck right here. It’s cold and dark and lonely, and wherever she goes, whatever she does, she’ll never leave this place.

She should go home soon. Before the rain comes again, she should go. She forgot her umbrella somewhere.

One more cigarette.

One more, and she’ll go.

 

-

 

“Hyung?”

“Taemin-ah.”

Taemin squints at him, only half-awake. “Did you sleep at all?”

“Some,” Jonghyun murmurs. “Did you dream of me?”

Taemin makes a face like that’s too cheesy to stomach. “Which show are we doing again?”

“Does it matter?” It’s Taemin asking, though, and today’s D-Day, they’re coming back with “Sherlock,” so Jonghyun plays nice. “M Countdown.” He nestles closer for his good morning kiss. Taemin’s breath stinks, but he tastes like last night. Like Jonghyun. “You want to skip? Stay in bed all day again?”

They ended up in Taemin’s, but Jonghyun’s bed is right over there, fresh and made, just asking to get messed up.

Taemin has to go and ruin it. “What time is it?”

Just like that, other things exist. Jonghyun pushes himself up to peer at the clock over Taemin’s shoulder, blanket slipping off him, early morning air biting into his skin.

“Four. Go back to sleep.”

Taemin pulls him back down, tucking him in again and wriggling closer. Their mouths meet, slow and soft and lazy, legs tangling, hands everywhere, skin-on-skin. Jonghyun woke up hard, lying here naked in Taemin’s arms, and Taemin’s getting there now, grinding against Jonghyun’s thigh.

“We have twenty minutes,” Taemin says, lips brushing Jonghyun’s with every word. “That’s enough.”

His fingers close around Jonghyun’s dick, startling a gasp out of Jonghyun, then a laugh. Then a moan. When his muscles kick in again he takes Taemin in his hand too, so hot and thick he wants to take him into his mouth. Taemin catches him on his way down his body, letting him go to wind both his hands in Jonghyun’s hair, holding him where he can see him. 

Jonghyun knows that look.

He leans in for another kiss, short and sweet, then takes Taemin by the shoulders, turns him onto his side. Traces Taemin’s spine and finds Taemin still wet with his come, greedy for his touch, pushing back onto his fingers, clenching around them, taking Jonghyun’s breath away. His self-control, too.

Taemin always gets what he wants.

Jonghyun gives it to him, as much as he can take, then a little more, a little more, until he bottoms out. Taemin gives him five seconds to adjust or explode, _“Move,_ hyung,” before he tries fucking himself, working his hips in little circles, moaning into the pillow. Jonghyun buries his face in his hair, breathes him in. Helps him out. Pulls out just to push back inside him, so tight and hot Jonghyun can barely take it.

Yesterday nothing was enough. Taemin wanted it fast and hard and every which way. From behind, on his hands and knees. Bent in half, legs over Jonghyun’s shoulders, feet in the air, so hungry for every dirty thought in Jonghyun’s head, so flexible it’d take days for Jonghyun to try everything. Staring up into Jonghyun’s face, lying in his arms, harder, faster, _please._ Sucking Jonghyun’s dick, sitting on it, riding it until his muscles gave out.

But right now. Taemin’s so warm and soft and pretty, taking him in, and it’s all Jonghyun can do to take it slow. It’s too much.

“When’s our next day off?” Taemin says breathlessly.

He can still talk. Jonghyun tips Taemin’s head back and fucks his tongue into his mouth, but then he has to breathe, and he knows the answer anyway.

“Next year?” Never? “Promotions, then Shinee World, SM Town…” Taemin’s lips close around his thumb, sucking it, hot and wet. Jonghyun’s brain blinks. Dragging his other hand down Taemin’s body, spreading his fingers over his stomach, soft smooth skin everywhere, he says, “At least we’ll be together. If I couldn’t see you I’d go crazy.”

“That’s worse. Crazier. Seeing and no touching.”

Taemin tugs his hand lower. Jonghyun makes him work for it, use both of his, smiling into his neck, fucking him stupid.

“I make you crazy, huh. You want me all the time, you get dirty thoughts just looking at me.” He doesn’t wait for an answer. Just presses his lips to Taemin’s ear, breathes into it, “Like what?”

Stills his hips, holds back, holds Taemin right where he is, fingers biting into his flesh.

“Hyung~” Taemin whines. “Like _this.”_

Taemin’s body does all the talking. Eyes squeezed shut, panting wet mouth, red ears, hips snapping against his grip, the noises he makes when Jonghyun bites his neck, pinches his nipple, tightens his fingers just that much, hits that spot inside him.

“You want my dick. You need it. Say it.” Jonghyun’s face burns, his whole body burns. “Taemin-ah~, say _something._ Tell me, talk to me.”

“Fuck me,” Taemin says, turning his face into the pillow. Jonghyun rewards him, short teasing strokes, making him moan. And then, hitched and breathy, “Come inside me.”

Jonghyun loses it.

“No one else, baby, only you. I’m yours,” fucking and fucking into him, “Fuck, you’re so tight,” kissing his shoulder, his neck, his mouth, “So good. So beautiful, Taeminnie,” hotter and hotter and hotter, “Taeminnie.” Taemin clenches around his dick, takes it and takes it, gasping and moaning, all for him. “Taeminnie. Say my name.”

“Jonghyun-ah.” Manager Hyung pounds on the door. “Taemin-ah.”

FUCK.

“We’re up, hyung. Just give us—” Taemin arches against him, wiggling his ass, teasing him. Torturing him. “Give us a few minutes.”

There. Now he can bite Taemin in peace. Hard. Taemin keens into Jonghyun’s palm, then licks it. Which, Taemin’s the one who won’t be able to look Manager Hyung in the face if he knows Manager Hyung _knows,_ Jonghyun’s only trying to save him from himself.

Manager Hyung gets the picture, anyway. “If you’re not out in five I’m coming in.”

And then he’s gone and Jonghyun can breathe again.

“You’re so bad.”

Taemin’s unrepentant. “You love it.”

Jonghyun breathes and breathes and breathes, waiting for the day to begin, for reality to hit his body. Taemin’s still on his dick and he’s done waiting, jerking himself off, trying to get there on his own. Jonghyun can’t have that. He drags Taemin’s hand away, makes to pull out, but Taemin grabs his ass, fingers digging into his flesh, fucking himself, taking Jonghyun deeper somehow. Sighing, full and happy.

“Shower, Taeminnie,” Jonghyun manages.

“Fuck me.”

Jonghyun kisses him, wet and messy, says into his mouth, “Mm. Against the wall. Hard.”

Taemin follows him with his eyes when he lifts away, dizzy with frustration. “I’m so close.”

“So hard you’ll feel it all day,” Jonghyun promises, nudging Taemin’s nose with his, licking the corner of his mouth, touching his tongue to Taemin’s. “I’ll stay inside you, all day.”

“Hyung~”

He bites Taemin’s bottom lip and pushes him onto his stomach, cool air slapping his dick. He’s so hard for Taemin and it’s like his body was made for fucking him, it’s useless at everything else, clumsy and stupid, half climbing, half stumbling out of bed. They’re going to ask him to dance in an hour, too. Taemin catches his hand while he’s looking for yesterday’s pants, naked and beautiful in the half-light, all Jonghyun’s. Then finally he catches Jonghyun’s eye too.

“Clothes,” he says, all business all of the sudden. “We won’t have time, after.”

Halfway across the room it hits Jonghyun like a two-ton weight. He follows Taemin into the closet just to say it. “I love you.”

“Hurry up, hyung.”

Jonghyun picks at random, pants, shirt, socks, underwear, there.

“Fine then,” he says, not-smiling. “You don’t have to love me back. You can just use me.”

Taemin makes this face like he’s about to explode, but then he leans in for a kiss and says, “I love you more,” and it’s cuter up close, so cute Jonghyun could eat him. Taemin’s so cute.

Bathroom. Shower.

Taemin.

 

The sun is coming up and the sky is bigger than it’s been in months. Even in the back lot, going crazy with nerves, going crazy for nicotine, no more cigarettes ever, it’s nice. And it’s not so bad, breathing in spring instead of blowing out smoke.

Jonghyun tips his head back, feels the wind in his hair. The stars wink at him, blue and white and yellow when he closes his eyes. Another half hour and they’ll be gone, but he’ll see them on the way home tonight. If he remembers he’ll tell Manager Hyung to stop, just so they can look. There won’t be any moon, but there shouldn’t be any clouds, either.

If he remembers.

Jonghyun breathes.

“You sure you don’t want one? You look like you could use it.”

He should never have started talking to Jinmyung noona. He thought she followed him out here to make sure he didn’t fuck up her work. Figures she only came for a smoke.

He shoots her a look. “The other noonas said you were quitting?”

She shrugs. Smiles.

“How long has it been for you? A week?” Two. “Get back to me in a couple more. If you can still talk, I’ll listen.”

Fair enough. He’ll just have to kiss Taemin a hundred times a day, if that’s what it takes. He can do this. He wouldn’t take a drag if she offered, or anything.

Gum. Gum, gum, gum.

…Back inside. Back to the rest of his life. Taemin. Jinki and Kibum and Minho. Shinee. M Countdown. “Sherlock.”

Press play.

“Don’t go anywhere,” she calls after him. “I’ll be back to touch you up in five minutes. If you’re not there you’re on your own.”

The hallway seems so bright and white on the way back, people everywhere, lots he knows, a lot more he’s supposed to. It’s easier to greet them all, and by the time he makes it back to their waiting room, he needs to sit down.

Taemin doesn’t make him wait, doesn’t make him ask. Before Jonghyun can look for him even, he’s there, sinking down on the couch next to him. The most he has to tell Jonghyun is, “Joomin hyung said Moon Mikyung’s in the audience, to see us,” but all that means is he’s talking. His nerves had eaten his stomach by the time Manager Hyung stopped for coffee, but they haven’t gotten to his vocal cords yet.

Jonghyun tries for a smile. “To see you, you mean?”

“I told him to ask her backstage for photos, but she was too embarrassed.”

“Good.”

Taemin laughs out loud.

Even here, even now, less than ten minutes between him and that stage, the sound does things to Jonghyun. Good things. Clears him out, settles everything inside him.

Puts a smile on his face, too. He just doesn’t realize until Taemin returns it, brighter, bigger, happier. “Should we take a photo together?”

“Should we?” Jonghyun digs in his pocket for his phone, wishing he’d been smart, gone for Taemin’s instead. “Selca~?”

Taemin leans in close. Jonghyun pulls him closer, arm around his shoulders, heads together, lined up from hip to shoulder. Perfect. He wonders how he should ruin it, make himself ugly, give Taemin bunny ears, pinch Taemin’s cheek, kiss it.

“What are you two doing?”

Too late. Figures Kibum would get there first, leaning on his elbows behind them, leaning into the frame, checking his angles, fixing his hair.

“Aigoo, my makeup looks terrible in this lighting.”

“That’s just you.” Great, Minho too. “Move over. Your face is too big to fit.”

And now Kibum is smirking.

“Look who’s talking. You’re too tall, you’ll wreck the shot.” Jonghyun would rather put his phone away, but Taemin looks so cute right now, and he was the one who asked. Jonghyun does his best, just for him. “Don’t bother with Minho, hyung. Really. I can see up your nostrils.”

“I look cute, right, Taeminnie~?”

“Mm.”

Jonghyun wanted a little more than that, but fine. He can get it out of Taemin tonight. He has his ways. Many of them. Many, many. Many many many—

There’s a click and a flash and on the other side, Taemin’s laughter. Jonghyun wasn’t even looking, he probably looked really dumb, but who cares. He purses his lips and bugs his eyes, flares his nostrils, sticks his tongue out, juts his jaw, tickle’s Taemin’s side, squashes Taemin's nose with his thumb, squishes his cheeks until Taemin goes from fairy to blowfish. Picture after picture after picture, until Minho makes a grab for his phone, snatches it away so easily Jonghyun should be embarrassed. Instead he’s slumped into Taemin’s side, weak and gasping. He’s lost it.

It’s okay, it’s just nerves. And Taemin.

“Do you want hyung to take it?” 

Jinki, back from the bathroom. He always spends more time in there than the waiting room, the first day.

“Get over here,” Kibum says impatiently. “You guys get up, it’s better if we’re all standing. There’s no point if it’s not all five of us.”

It’s his phone, but Jonghyun does what he’s told. They don’t take enough photos themselves. They always forget. 

“If you can’t smile right now, don’t fake it. It’ll look like we were forced to take this or something.”

Minho says it like it’s for their own good, but they all know who he’s talking to. Jinki, too. He just doesn’t give a shit, eye smiles and v signs for days. Jonghyun doesn’t do that to him. All it takes is a couple seconds, and this moment becomes forever. Until he gets a good look at how ugly he turned out and deletes them all. Until Taemin finally stops laughing, decides that face he made isn’t funny anymore, and steals Jonghyun’s phone. Until Jonghyun misplaces it, loses it for good. Until, until, until.

But for now, forever.

Manager Hyung acts like he’s only coming over to do his job, check up on them, but the first thing out of his mouth is, “What’s so funny?” Jonghyun doesn’t bother with the second thing, “You guys doing okay?” or the third, “Do you need anything? It’s too late for snacks, if you got anything stuck in your teeth…water, maybe?”

“You, too, hyung,” Jonghyun says. “We don’t have any photos with you. Come on.”

Jinki doesn’t let him say no, so Jinmyung noona takes Jonghyun’s phone and waits for them to huddle into the frame, lets them figure it out. She doesn’t really give a fuck, but that’s okay. Jonghyun has enough time to get his arms around Taemin, and tear his eyes away from him to look at the camera.

He puts his whole heart into it, and smiles.

Click.

Forever.

Click.

Forever.

Click.

And then there’s no time at all. Five minutes to go, and it’s down to the five of them, circle of arms.

“Okay,” Jinki says, “Okay. We can do this. We’ve got this. It’s been a year and a half since Lucifer, but that just means we’re a year and a half stronger. We’re a year and a half better.”

“Yes, it’s been a year and a half. I think we can handle four minutes, hyung,” Kibum snaps, but he gives himself away right away, smiling like crazy, deadly serious, halfway between flying and falling. “If we can’t we don’t deserve to call ourselves Shinee. We might as well quit.”

Minho squeezes some shoulders. He has to reach to get Jonghyun, but that doesn’t stop him. And maybe Jonghyun feels it in his bones when Minho says, “Let’s go out there and show them what we’ve got.”

Yeah. YEAH.

“We’ve been through a lot this comeback. But we’ve learned a lot, too. I don’t care about winning—”

Minho cuts across Jinki just to say, “I care.”

Taemin too.

“You don’t think we can win, is that it? You’re trying to let us down easy?” Kibum says. “We can handle losing, hyung. Whatever happens, I’ll take it. As long as we try.”

“We can win,” Taemin tells them all, but he’s looking straight at Jonghyun. “Maybe not the first time, but we’re going to win.”

Jonghyun holds his eyes, and says, “I want to,” and if he doesn’t put every single thing he has into those words, it’s not because he doesn’t mean it. He does. But talk is just talk, and backstage is backstage. When they go out there, when “Sherlock” kicks in, Taemin will see. Jonghyun won’t let him down.

“I want to, too,” Jinki says, bringing them back to the beginning, holding them together. “But this time, I don’t care what anybody else says. If we go out there and we make ourselves proud, make our fans happy, then we’ve already won. Nobody can take that away from us. Nobody, ever.” He looks around at them all, jaw set, fire in his eyes. No stupid jokes, no laughing at himself, putting himself last, putting himself down to make them feel better, no nonsense. No nothing. Jinki’s never cool until suddenly he is. Then he’s the coolest person on the planet. “Let’s do this right, okay? Let’s do this our way. Let’s go out there and kick some ass. For Shinee World. For Shinee. For us.”

And then it’s time to line up, no time left, and the only person in Jonghyun’s world is Taemin.

“Are you nervous, hyung?” he says, searching Jonghyun’s face.

“Uh huh,” Jonghyun gets out. He already knows the answer, just looking at Taemin, but still, he asks, “Are you?”

Taemin smiles at him.

“I feel like I’m having a heart attack,” he admits, and now that it’s out there, he just smiles harder. “I’ll be okay once the music starts.”

Jonghyun knows he will be. Somehow he always is. It’s not God, it’s not instinct, it’s not anything but Taemin himself. That night by the river, Taemin told Jonghyun he tries harder than anyone he knows, but that’s only because Jonghyun knows Taemin better than Taemin knows himself. Taemin can’t not try. He’s never learned how. No matter what happens, whatever it takes, however much it hurts, he never lets it get to him. He never stops smiling. He never gives up.

And he’s never given up on Jonghyun. He’s never let go of Jonghyun’s hand. He’s the reason Jonghyun is here right now. He’s everything.

Taemin pulls him into a hug, so tight Jonghyun can hardly breathe, says into his hair, “Do your best.”

Jonghyun holds onto him with everything he’s got.

“You too, Taemin-ah.”

Time.

Sound check. Positions. Count in.

Jonghyun’s got this. He’s not alone, he’s ready, he’s got this.

He’d give anything to be right here. Anything.

This moment is all he has. Right now is all he has.

It's enough.

_My heart is beating so fast, Taeminnie. It's so loud. Can you hear it?_

Kibum, Minho, Jinki, Taemin, Jonghyun.

Five, four, three, two, one.

“Shinee’s back.”


End file.
